Security awareness – implementation in your company
Security awareness – implementation in your company

Cyber attacks, ransomware attacks, phishing emails and much more are now (unfortunately) part of everyday business life. In order to address these risks and protect your company, various measures are necessary in your daily work – both technically and organizationally. The risks posed by organizational weaknesses or ignorance in particular are often neglected in many companies. This is precisely where we come in: With the help of an organized IT security concept and regular IT training for your employees, you can achieve a level of security that helps your company to face today’s digital dangers with confidence.
Security awareness – briefly explained
In general, the term “security awareness” refers to the holistic, cross-departmental and cross-divisional awareness that internal company information – in whatever form – is in need of protection. This includes intellectual property such as patents, recipes and customer lists, but also personal data, personnel information, financial data and much more.
Many “protective measures” in a company, especially physical precautions such as locking systems, surveillance cameras, gates and reception areas, are clearly recognizable and therefore logical and comprehensible for employees. Other “gateways” that are not visible at first glance, on the other hand, pose a major threat. In particular, new types of IT security vulnerabilities have emerged in recent years in the course of the digitalization of business processes – as an undesirable side effect, so to speak – that did not previously exist in this form. It is now important to keep pace with adapted workflows and processes and to minimize the risks in everyday working life through a combination of various targeted and effective measures.
The aim of security awareness is to ensure that employees
- use the available technological possibilities effectively and efficiently for the company
- are aware of the variety of dangers and gateways
- are able to act confidently, enlightened and without fear in an emergency.
The involvement of external IT security experts is worthwhile for various reasons:
- unbiased and security-focused view to identify potential risks
- up-to-date know-how; both technically and with regard to the approach of attackers
- Extensive experience in dealing with cyber attacks, ransomware attacks, phishing mails & Co.
- The capacities of the internal IT department are not additionally tied up, but can continue to focus on the company’s core business.
Phishing mails & Co. – how quickly you fall into the trap
In a typical working day, you are confronted with a lot: Whether it’s emails, phone calls or meetings, everything just comes at you. In the general hectic pace of work today and the associated abundance of parallel information, it is almost unavoidable that things are not always thought through to the last detail and “quickly clicked on”.
An example:
You receive an e-mail, perhaps even with the company logo, asking you to change your personal password as quickly as possible for security reasons. Experience shows that people often don’t hesitate for long, click on the link to change their password and (apparently) renew their personal password. And that’s it!
This scenario is a classic among so-called phishing attempts. “Phishing” is the term used to describe efforts to trick employees into disclosing personal information and access data by faking legitimate messages or websites in order to gain access to company systems. In order to deceive employees, urgent issues that seem important to the employee are usually used – this causes stress and tempts them to deal with the issue “in a hurry”.
The consequences of such attacks can be devastating for a company, its future and its continued existence. Successful cyber attacks, ransomware attacks and phishing emails make companies vulnerable to blackmail, damage the company’s image, destroy customer trust and cause certain areas or even the entire company to be unable to work. And that’s without even mentioning the potential consequences for the authorities, such as fines.
For this reason, it is particularly important that you and your employees are prepared for such dangers in everyday working life and know exactly how to react in certain situations.
Security awareness – the solution for your company’s security
In order to minimize the risks described above, it is important to introduce a holistic IT security concept in your company. Possible implementations can consist of the following content:
- Regulation of password guidelines, access rights, data protection requirements, updates & Co.
- Creation of an emergency plan for regulated action in emergencies
With these partly technical, partly organizational measures, you can already lay the foundation for the security awareness of your employees. This security awareness concept, known as “sensitization”, is an elementary component to ensure the protection of your employees and thus also the stability of your company.
Theory and practice – optimally linked!
The security awareness concept should be followed by structured, regular IT training and IT security courses as well as “test scenarios”. This is because a major challenge arises from the fact that attackers are constantly developing new scenarios. Accordingly, continuous sensitization and awareness-raising in the form of regular training and further education on occupational safety is indispensable in companies today.
This makes the theoretical concepts tangible for your employees and trains a critical eye.
The regular IT security training courses, which can be carried out on a self-study basis or in a group – depending on the individual company situation – always point out current sources of danger and their development. This knowledge is a particularly important building block, as it enables employees to better understand which information and gateways are “exciting” and understand which areas of their daily work should be carried out with particular care. “Real-world” training in this area is also extremely effective, as employees are confronted with ‘attacks’ (e.g. phishing emails) in their day-to-day work that have been specially created for the purpose of the training and thus become more familiar with how to deal with such scenarios.
The human position in IT security – risk or defensive shield?
As technical infrastructures are only capable of reacting to possible (cyber) attacks to a certain extent and criminals are constantly evolving and exploiting new loopholes, humans have a special position and importance with regard to IT security. According to the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), humans are not defined as a “security gap”, but as a “defensive shield”. This is because humans – unlike “machines” – can think and act freely without a known event or specific pattern. This is still the great advantage over so-called “artificial intelligence”, which takes or recommends actions based on patterns, probabilities and past events. People – or in this specific case, employees – are therefore at the heart of your company’s IT security, as they are in a special position to recognize and report anomalies and unusual behavior.
This is why it is of such central importance to convey security awareness to your employees and to continuously sensitize them to the real and constantly evolving cyber threats.
The key to this data and company security therefore consists of
- Technical measures
- Functioning processes
- Concrete rules of conduct
- and a coordinated and modern sensitization of the people in the company.
Secure your company now, develop or update your security concept and raise your employees’ awareness of existing risks.
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