The series of ever increasing publicly acknowledged hacks and ransomware attacks utilising spear phishing techniques should be sounding alarm bells in the C-suites of not only large companies but small and medium sized businesses relying on static filtering software to protect their business.
But of course it won’t.
This is despite the diverse range of targets of recent attacks: from energy infrastructure (Colonial Pipeline), national health care services (Health Services Executive of Ireland) and food supply (JBS meat supplier). In the next few weeks we will likely see another large scale attack with a direct impact not just on a company’s bottom line but also on their customers and larger community.
Everyone thinks this cannot and will not happen to them. For company CEOs, they are told that IT Security is on top of it. They have a shiny new gizmo in the server room watching incoming emails, the latest software, the latest updates and patches installed, and all employees have clicked through an online training presentation in the past year. For employees, they rarely think they would ever be the target of a sophisticated attack. Why me? And everyone feels they are too smart to be duped.
The next cyber attack has probably just happened: cyber criminals are becoming more brazen and persistent.
Gamified solutions present a new tool in the toolbox for businesses of any size. It empowers employees to take personalised ownership over their own cybersecurity which in turn protects the company from these increasingly sophisticated attacks.
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As more employees remain home in the hybrid work environment, using a variety of devices (some of which may not be sanctioned by their company) to conduct business on-the-go, the risk of an attack getting around static safe guards and in-office cubicle training through powerpoint presentations grows exponentially.
Over a decade ago gamification disrupted the U.S. energy market as companies like OPower and Simple Energy allowed utilities to engage their customers and incentivise them through simple gaming to compete with their neighbors to lower energy usage. Utilities were better able to optimise consumption during off-peak hours and customers saved on their energy bills.
Gaming should be brought into the cybersecurity space to help companies more deeply enhance their security and assist their employees with better identifying spear phishing attacks both at work and at home.
Your last line of defence is your people – when the hardware and monitoring tools fail, it’s up to them to recognise and respond to attacks.
MonkPhish is developing the first generation of gaming solutions specifically for the cybersecurity space. Solutions that put each member of your office and team in the driver seat to experience the perspective of both target and attacker.
No one knows your organisation better than your employees and no one has more access to your company than they do. Empower your team and get ahead of the growing scale of spear phishing attacks.
Leveraging your employees as part of a critical line of defense better supports the existing static software and filtering solutions. This way, you can also turn one of weakest cyber assets into one of your strongest cyber defences.
