Human errors cause almost 90% of data breaches, Do we need a human firewall?

We saw global disruption at an unprecedented scale. It was a whole new journey of learning to discover the limits to which we could push technology. As millions of workers, students and professionals were forced to log in from home, cybersecurity took on a whole new meaning. Lack of cybersecurity in home networks increasingly made organizational security vulnerable, creating new opportunities for cybercriminals. As remote and hybrid working models continue to be the norm, the threat from cybercriminals will continue to loom large. The top 5 drivers resulting in unintentional insider threats include social engineering, fear exploitation, whaling, thread hijacking and spear phishing.

Human errors cause almost 90% of data breaches. So, even if you have a robust cybersecurity infrastructure in place, such as a Next Generation Firewall, the lack of skilled cybersecurity professionals can leave a significant gap in your cybersecurity initiatives. This gap can then be easily exploited by cybercriminals to carry out a data breach or other cyberattacks. And with cybersecurity attacks getting more sophisticated by the day, the need to have a skilled cybersecurity team becomes even more critical.

In 2021, there will be more innovative phishing lures designed to trick users and make attacks harder to identify. The prospect of continued social isolation has encouraged people to share more personal information online, which cybercriminals can weaponize. New fears will be used to drive people to open malicious emails – whether it’s vaccines, financial concerns related to the lockdown and any political instability.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) notified Equifax about a vulnerability affecting certain versions of Apache Struts. They sent them an email notification regarding the same. The organization’s IT team, however, failed to identify and fix the vulnerability. This vulnerability was exploited by a hacker who gained access to Equifax’s system for more than a month. If the organization had a skilled cybersecurity team, the vulnerability could have been fixed at the earliest, saving them from the incurred damages. Now the question is how do you identify and close the cybersecurity skills gap currently present in your organization? The answer is not only have a state of the art cybersecurity solution but also to have a human firewall in place.

The first component for bridging the cybersecurity skills gap and building a strong foundation for a human firewall is assessing the employees’ current cybersecurity awareness. You can carry out this process by conducting baseline testing. Baseline testing involves simulating phishing and other types of cyberattacks to see how employees respond to them. This will help you discover the employees’ strengths and weaknesses and give you a clear idea of what areas need improvement. Until you have a clear understanding of the gaps in your current cybersecurity protection, you won’t be able to take the correct future steps. Building a strong human firewall to bridge the cybersecurity skills gap requires a lot of training and practice, which can cause organizations to abandon the process midway.