Are You Putting Your Agency’s Networks at Risk?
Have you ever carried sensitive information out of the office on a laptop or accessed your agency’s virtual private network using your personal mobile device or a public wireless hot spot?
The thought of employees toting sensitive documents around and accessing government data on their smartphones is enough to make any IT professional cringe, but this is becoming the norm in today’s mobile work environment.
That’s why government agencies are now taking a risk-based approach to security. They can't eliminate all risks when humans are involved, but they can implement security controls — such as remote wiping capabilities for lost or stolen smartphones and continuous monitoring tools to detect rogue devices — that help mitigate risks.
What if employees could measure how much risk they’re exposing their agency to? The National Cyber Security Alliance is putting that power in the hands of employees.
In honor of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the alliance is making EMC’s Workplace Security Risk Calculator available to employees to help them learn if their workplace activities are risky and what they can do to protect their organizations' data.
Employees are engaging in a number of behaviors that are putting their agencies and companies at risk. Some 44 percent have sent work documents to their personal email addresses so they could access them from home, and the average person uses the same password on six websites, according to EMC.
The assessment generates a risk level based on answers to a dozen questions, including whether you’ve uploaded work documents to an online file-sharing service, visited online gaming sites from their work devices and become familiar with your organization’s security policy.
