Older or Younger Employees? Who’s a Bigger Cyber Risk?
Older or younger employees? Who’s the bigger cyber risk to your business? The answer might surprise you. New research shows that your younger tech-savvy employees might be your biggest cybersecurity risk.
Surprising? Let’s understand why.
A global survey went out to over 6,500 employees with equal representation of all demographics (age, sex, status). The results were rather concerning.
According to the polls, younger employees, those under 40, are more likely to ignore password and security best practices. Surprisingly, 34% of the younger crowd admits to using their birthdates as passwords. While only 19% of respondents over 40 do the same.
And that’s not all.
Younger workers, about 38%, are also guilty of using the same password across multiple devices and logins.
Let’s not even begin to discuss phishing scams. Of the younger demographic, a staggering 23% did not report the last time they received a phishing attempt. Their reasoning? “I didn’t think it was important.”
They surely must be aware of how serious these security concerns are against businesses, right? Well, not quite.
The general attitude toward cybersecurity is poor despite the fact that 23% of employees acknowledge ransomware and phishing attempts to be serious threats.
The worst part is that a startling number of those surveyed say their companies do NOT require any cybersecurity training.
The statistics speak for themselves. Here’s the breakdown by country: The US (30%), the UK (17%), Netherlands (32%), Japan (35%), India (31%), Germany (22%), France (43%), Australia (29%), and China (65%).
With those numbers, can we really blame our younger employees when it’s clear that the businesses are not equipping them with the necessary cybersecurity training?
It is crucial that we stop thinking of cybersecurity as an afterthought and begin providing regular training on cyber awareness to all employees in our business. Yes, all of them. Not just the tech and management team.
The end goal is not just to protect your business from threats, but to make the digital world a safer space for everyone.
To get help doing so, get in touch.
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