“Cyber Fatigue” is a term used to describe the phenomenon of companies giving up on cybersecurity measures, affecting almost half of businesses worldwide. Contributing factors include a growing belief that most in-house IT staff are not equipped with the skills and tools to defend against sophisticated cyber attacks.
In reality, the “fatigue” of business leaders is valid. IBM shares that identifying a breach takes an average of 212 days. Containing it is a different conversation, as it takes 285 days more. Making an active effort to firefight the breach can cost companies a fortune. Ransomware attacks rose 435% from 2019 to 2020, and ransom payments increased by 518% from 2020 to 2021, costing Australian companies an average of $250,000.
Incorporating the “fight” into the company’s culture
All imaginable resources are exhausted when a business tries to fight a cyberattack. However, most cyberattacks are preventable using the most basic technologies and strategies. In 2021, phishing was used in almost 40% of breaches, malware was used in 11%, and hacking was used in 22%. These are all preventable if employees are trained to detect and deal with cyberattacks. These statistics match the World Economic Forum finding that 95% of data breaches are caused by human error.
At the height of these numbers, Plex IT’s David Payne said, “Security is a culture that the organization as a whole must partake in order to be a part of that.”
Plex IT helps clients incorporate cybersecurity into its work culture in the most unexpected way. Post-pandemic, companies have implemented work-from-home arrangements for employees. On paper, this should be a greater challenge for cybersecurity as the business’ files now reside outside their internal databases. Plex IT deploys higher security controls leveraging cloud services to allow companies to function safely and at the same level of productivity as when their employees are in the office. Since the hybrid set-up eliminates some stressors for the employees, such as traveling to work, this strategy also increases employee retention and satisfaction by 40%. An increase of 30% in the bottom line, correlated to a 30% increase in productivity, is also a product of implementing a robust security framework and defining security controls to suit the business and meet the framework’s requirements.
Plex IT has been able to assist numerous organizations across Australia with their working-from-home arrangements, enhancing accessibility while deploying strict security functions and controls to keep data and networks safe.
Cybersecurity and morale
The line between business operations and IT becomes thinner in an increasingly technological marketplace. Almost all business processes nowadays are delivered through networks, so the IT of the company is no longer just one department but the backbone of the entire business operation. Employees will feel it when the work they’ve put in is protected and will not jeopardize digital safety.