IN an increasingly interconnected digital landscape, the battleground of cybersecurity is getting intense.
Cybersecurity company Fortinet, in its 2023 Security Awareness and Training Global Research Brief, highlighted the importance of organisations building a cyber-aware workforce to strengthen their security posture and reduce cyber attacks.
The company said organisations today were grappling with an increasingly sophisticated threat landscape.
The most recent Global Threat Landscape Report from Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs found that ransomware threats remain at peak levels with no evidence of slowing down globally. At the same time, Fortinet's 2023 Cybersecurity Skills Gap Global Report found that 84 per cent of organisations experienced one or more breaches in 2022.
And now the latest research from Fortinet's 2023 Security Awareness and Training Global Research Brief reveals that more than 90 per cent of leaders believe that increased employee cybersecurity awareness would help decrease the occurrence of cyber attacks.
The survey was conducted among more than 1,800 information technology and/or cybersecurity decision-makers from 29 different locations worldwide. The survey respondents came from a range of industries, including technology (21 per cent), manufacturing (16 per cent) and financial services (13 per cent).
Fortinet executive vice-president of products and chief marketing officer John Maddison said the 2023 Security Awareness and Training Global Research Brief underscores the crucial role employees play in preventing cyber attacks.
"It also highlights the critical need for organisations to prioritise security awareness and training services to ensure employees serve as the first line of defence," he said.
EMPLOYEES' ROLE
As organisations face increasing cyber risks, the research highlights the important role of employees in serving as an organisation's first line of defence in protecting their organisation from cyber crime.
The key findings from Fortinet's research include:
1. Employees are being targeted by cyber criminals. The research found that 81 per cent of organisations faced malware, phishing and password attacks last year, which mainly were targeted at users. This underscores that employees can be an organisation's weakest point or one of its most powerful defences.
2. Having an effective training programme is key to instilling good cyber hygiene in employees. Eighty-five per cent of leaders say their organisation has a security awareness and training programme, yet more than 50 per cent believe their employees still lack cybersecurity knowledge. This gap suggests the training programmes may not be as effective as they could be, resulting in inconsistency in how employees apply good cyber hygiene practices or that training is not reinforced sufficiently.
3. Cybersecurity is increasingly becoming a priority for the board of directors. The report found that 93 per cent of organisations indicated their board of directors were asking about the organisations' cyber defences and strategy.
