There are a few things we just won’t stand for in 2020 – but first on the list is the phrase, “employees are the weakest link in cyber security.” It’s a saying that people really should have ditched in 2019.
You can probably guess that since I’m writing this, unfortunately, most people haven’t. Online and even among cyber security professionals, it’s still a common thought process.
“What’s wrong with believing employees are the weak point?”, you might ask. Given the ever-increasing frequency data breaches – with human error often being either a cause or catalyst in the majority of cases – you’d be forgiven for thinking that employees are naturally at fault.
But they’re not – and there are a few logical reasons why.
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The weakest link?
Firstly, framing the conversation like this doesn’t get us anywhere. Are football players to blame when they lose a match? Well, in a way, but the players are also to ‘blame’ when they win. And even when they do lose, telling them that they’re the problem is only going to demoralize and lead to further losses.
Secondly, if blame has to lie somewhere, it surely lies with the security awareness programs rather than the employees who rely on those programs to better protect themselves. The reason that human-error breaches continue to occur at such at rate is that – and let’s be honest here – security awareness training in its current form just doesn’t work.
