Stop Blaming the End User for Security Risk

upstart writes:

Stop Blaming the End User for Security Risk:

It's common among cybersecurity professionals to point to the end user as a top area of risk in securing the organization. This is understandable. Systems and software are under our control, but users are unpredictable, that unruly variable that expands our threat surface to each geographically dispersed user, personal device, and all-too-human foibles and flaws.

Certainly, threat actors target our users quite successfully - I'm not here to dismiss this obvious truth. But what is equally certain is this:We cannot train our way out of this problem. Enterprises pour significant investments into user security-awareness training, and still, they suffer embarrassing, costly breaches. So, focusing primarily on securing the end user isn't a sound strategy.

Fact: your users are a major risk factor. According to Verizon's "2022 Data Breach and Investigations Report," 35% of ransomware infections began with a phishing email. Fact: This is despite escalating investments in security-awareness training over many years. The cybersecurity awareness training market is projected to grow from $1,854.9 million in 2022 to $12,140 million by 2027. Fact: Even with all these investments, ransomware (just as one attack type) is also expected to grow aggressively, despite many organizational efforts, including training.

Sad, unavoidable fact: Our users are still going to make mistakes - we're all human, after all. A survey conducted to prove the need for more security training, in my view, proved its inability to stop the cyber crisis: Four out of five surveyed had received security awareness training; between 26% and 44% (based on age demographic) continued to click on links and attachments from unknown senders anyway.

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