Cybercriminals are becoming harder to predict and more sophisticated, using more complex tactics and methods to orchestrate their attacks.
They look for unaware users who are easier to target using social engineering methods to steal their data and gain initial access. This is why awareness is probably the single most critical aspect in cybersecurity that organizations must address if they are looking to build an impenetrable defense for their organization.
What happens when organizations overlook human error and awareness gaps? Let us explore!
What are the consequences of lack of awareness?
An organization that overlooks its awareness gaps increases the possibility of human error and its employees falling for social engineering attacks. Big companies are no strangers to this, with cybercriminals exploiting human error and lack of awareness.
Take the recent Salesforce/Salesloft Drift specific breaches as an example, where the attacker targeted English-speaking individuals from MNCs and used social engineering methods to make them download a malicious OAuth authenticator and then used access to exfiltrate large quantities of data from multiple organizations.
It impacted the operations, data, and reputations of some of the biggest companies in the world, like Google, Adidas, and cybersecurity companies like Palo Alto Networks, Tenable, and Cloudflare.
The following are some of the common risks and costs associated with a lack of awareness:
Risks
- Operational disruption
- Account compromise
- Data theft
- Identity theft
- Loss of confidential and sensitive PII
- Reputational damage
- Physical security risks
Costs
- Remediation and recovery costs due to incidents
- Losses incurred due to operational disruption
- Legal fines due to non-compliance
- Reduced brand trust
- Lost business opportunities due to a data breach
Some facts worth considering
(DBIR 2025, FBI Internet Crime Report 2024, Proofpoint State of Phish report 2024)
- 60% of data breaches involved human element
- Social engineering was cause of data breach in wholesale (98%) transportation (91%) Real Estate (84%) Professional services (91%) Other services (79%)
- The FBI reported that Phishing/spoofing alone costed losses summing to $70,013,036
- 71% engaged in risky action out of which 96% knew they were doing something risky
- 58% of users who took risky actions made themselves vulnerable to common social engineering attacks
Some benefits of an effective cybersecurity awareness program
- Mitigates human error and reduces the effectiveness of social engineering methods
- Helps detect insider threats and phishing attempts
- Prevents costs of damages from attack and non-compliance
- Improves the effectiveness of a cybersecurity program
- Improves incident response by making people aware of their roles and responsibilities in incident response
What are some essential elements of an effective cybersecurity awareness?
The following are some elements that organizations must include to make their cybersecurity awareness program more effective:
It must:
- Be based on risk assessment – An effective cybersecurity awareness program will have its basis in risk assessments that highlight areas to prioritize training on.
- Identify key behaviors – It must define the behaviors and best practices that teams must adopt, like setting a strong password, enabling MFA, or identifying phishing emails.
- Focus on habits – forming a good habit necessitates practice, therefore sessions must be regularly conducted to ensure that employees. Keep the sessions short and focused, as they are more effective than long and broad ones.
- Cover all the aspects of cybersecurity and compliance – a program is effective if employees are aware of their roles and responsibilities in critical aspects like data security, incident response, and compliance.
