Despite incredible advancements in fraud detection technology, phishing scams will inevitably make their way into employees’ inboxes. When employees engage with malicious content, it can have enormous consequences for your organization. Nobody wants to endure the rising costs associated with a data breach, and comprehensive employee awareness training can ensure that those phishing scams don’t impact your bottom line.

Email accounts are serious vulnerabilities for every company, as there are many ways by which cybercriminals can exploit social engineering and malware to find their way in. However, every company can lock down their email accounts by implementing two-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized access, even if login credentials are compromised.

Phishing attacks are easy to deploy, and they are devastating to companies compromised by malicious messages. Although security processes are unlikely to keep all phishing emails out of their employees’ inboxes, they can render the attacks useless by providing comprehensive awareness training that teaches and trains employees to identify phishing scams.

This incident is a tragic reminder that, when it comes to data security, timing is everything. Phishing scam awareness training and two-factor authentication can go a long way toward protecting company and customer data, but they need to be in place before an attack occurs. Therefore, installing proactive measures should be a top priority in the days and weeks ahead.

In addition to academic and government institutions, cybercriminals are increasingly targeting businesses that store customer data. Many are now willing to compromise customer data if ransom demands aren’t met, a new reality that significantly increases the potential damage of a ransomware attack.