5 Security Risks Your Company Is Taking

Operating a business in today’s dynamic environment is not easy. Your business is exposed to a myriad of threats, which can damage your company’s reputation, leak out confidential information and weaken your company’s position in the market.

Are your passwords safe?

The more office work is becoming paperless and computerized, the more businesses are becoming vulnerable to security threats. With the increase of online businesses and virtual space, office risks have doubled simultaneously.

Some of the top 5 security risks that your company can face are discussed below:

1.    Information leak: No matter how many anti-viruses you install or how many foolproof measures you take to protect your sensitive data from hackers, it is still not enough. Data breaches have increased tremendously in recent years.  Around 35% of businesses suffer from a data breach frequently.

2.    Spear Fishing & Social Engineering: Disabling and hacking business websites to steal data has posed a great deal of threat to companies. Spear fishing and social engineering are two of the most common methods used by hackers to plunder databases of businesses. This can be done from any part of the world. Employees receive disguised messages and emails with refined grammar and flowery language, which excites and intrigues them to open it. Social engineering has increased exponentially. Social engineering has made many employees cough up sensitive information about the companies they work for which has put many companies in deep waters.

3.    Insiders: The employees, who fear that they might get laid off, are the ones who usually act as insiders. It is easy for them to access confidential data of the company and steal client data as well. Once they get their hands on the sensitive data, they sell it to the competitor at a good price.

4.    Over Usage of Social Media: Where social media has given a platform for people to interact and businesses to attract customers, it has also opened a gateway to problems. Professionals have been known to accidentally and unintentionally share confidential corporate information with social engineers on social media websites. Besides, malware like infected links can be sent easily through social media websites, which once opened can damage the whole system.

5.    The Dark Cloud: As companies are moving towards cloud computing to curb fraud, The Dark Cloud has been introduced. This is a threat to cloud computing. It is designed to exploit cloud technology.

To protect your company from these risks you must ensure that:

•    Your employees are trust worthy
•    You should closely monitor their activities
•    Risk management activity should be carried out  time and again
•    Also make sure that you get the latest and most advanced software installed on your system which combats malware efficiently and effectively.

[Image via 2.bp]