Typically, when business owners tell us they are worried about their technology or data security, it’s usually because they are envisioning thieves and hackers who want to steal from them. However, the bigger risks sometimes come from inside a company’s walls.
Your employees and managers might not mean your business harm, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t making common and costly mistakes. Today, we want to mention seven different errors we see non-IT personnel commit all the time…
#1 Opening Emails With Malware or Phishing Requests
Criminals don’t have to use sophisticated tools to break into your servers and databases if they can simply convince your employees to open suspicious emails. Unfortunately, without the right training in place, a lot of your staff members simply might not know what to look for or how to spot messages that might not be legitimate.
#2 Deleting Important Backups
It’s a common misconception that you only need one backup copy of your most important digital records (usually the latest one). However, you may need to revert back further if you lose data because of a recently updated driver, new software installations, corrupted hardware, or even malware. So, by wiping out old backups your team could be taking away your ability to get your business back up and running quickly.
#3 Damaging IT Equipment
This is something we see all the time. Because the majority of your staff might not recognize just how sensitive things like hard drives or rack-mounted equipment can be, they can expose them to heat, moisture, or power surges without realizing the risks. Usually, these sorts of mistakes aren’t uncovered until it’s too late to prevent something bad from happening.
#4 Leaving Sensitive Data Exposed
How diligent is your team about keeping information like passwords or client records hidden from vendors and other people who come in and out of your business? You would be amazed at how often we discover that a data breach or other theft can be traced back to sloppy security procedures from front-line employees who simply didn’t know better.
#5 Making Unintentional Changes to Your Website
The great thing about having a modern content management system is that you can make changes to your own website. The bad thing, of course, is that any employee with access to a blog, calendar, or other component of your web presence can unintentionally delete entire sections. This is an area of IT where a little bit of training, and a regular backup strategy, can end up saving you in a big way.
#6 Wasting Time on Unnecessary Workarounds
In many small and medium-sized companies, employees waste dozens of hours every month on unneeded workarounds. Often, they don’t know how to properly use shortcuts, apps, or productivity suites that ownership has provided. So, they do things in an inefficient way even though there are faster and more reliable tools available.
#7 Buying Technology You Don’t Need
If you aren’t careful you could find yourself in a situation where your team members are asking for pieces of technology that are redundant, unnecessary, or even not compatible with your current setup. You can avoid these problems with regular IT consulting and planning, but you’re bound to run into them if you don’t have someone with the right expertise on your side.
Looking for an IT partner who can provide employee training on top of consulting and technical support? Then you need help from Fantastic IT, the Southern California company that brings you all-in-one technology solutions and advice. Contact us today to schedule a free consultation!