A Construction Company’s Best Defense Against a Cyber Attack is Not What You Would Guess

According to the 2021 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, email was the top delivery method of malware in 2021. Employees and construction firms are the target of these threats each day, sometimes multiple times, and a company’s best defense is ensuring their team can identify legitimate vs. non-legitimate and risky threats. It is critical that a construction firm’s employees are educated and trained to a certain degree in cybersecurity, as a security threat cannot be avoided if it is not recognized. The most common of all security threats is caused by human error.

Human error is responsible for a large majority of cyberbreaches

When employers make cybersecurity awareness training a priority, they are helping to prevent major losses within a company; though, awareness training rarely addresses the application of preventing a breach.

Addressing risky employee behavior is the critical part of implementing training and seeing it’s impact in prevention. Encouraging employees to become truly knowledgeable and commit to doing so throughout their career is a step in the direction of breaking the pattern of cybercrime vulnerability that plagues insurance firms and puts their policy holders and clients at risk.

General knowledge of cybersecurity best practices is extremely important, because it serves as the basis for potentially compromising a construction firm’s most prized data and operations.

As hackers are constantly becoming more and more savvy about infecting a business, on-going training must be part of a firm’s onboarding and continuing education strategy from the time each employee begins their tenure.

Many people believe that small businesses, AE&C Firms included, are off the radar of hackers. This is simply not true. All businesses are at risk, as human error is present across all firms, big and small.

7 Steps to Protect Your Construction Firm

  1. Conduct a webinar, interactive, and mandatory for all employees that focuses on ransomware attempts, insider threats, and email compromises
  2. Host a lunch and learn monthly to focus on best practices, such as often changing and strong password protection
  3. Implement and train your employees on multi-factor authentication
  4. Train your employees on how to spot a risky wi-fi network when working remotely, and the importance of using a VPN
  5. Test your employees as you teach them with examples of real and thwarted examples of attempts at company hacks, both through email and phone calls
  6. Create a “live fire” simulation of a real attack and gauge how your employees respond to assess where your biggest vulnerabilities lie
  7. Read Construction Companies are Prime Targets of BEC and Wire Fraud Attacks

Protecting your construction firm against an attack is a feat that requires extensive knowledge and attention. Learn about the 10 Steps AE&C Companies Should Take to Protect Themselves Against Ransomware Hackers.