Why User Relationships With Your IT Support Team Should Is Necessary For Cybersecurity

Cyberattacks continue to leave workplaces vulnerable all over the country. Many attacks were caused from employees not being able to identify a threat (social engineering or phishing attacks) or not reporting symptoms of an attack to the right people.

And most often, users either (1) aren’t aware of threats or (2) are disengaged with their IT Support because of bad past experiences, leaving doors open to a variety of cyberattacks specifically targeted to this type of user.

What many IT Departments and IT Support providers fail to realize is that every single employee can be an open door to a cyberattack. And the majority of IT Support companies—some of which are in our own back yard in and around Philadelphia—don’t understand that making users feel important should be constantly top of mind to ensure they are following cybersecurity best practices.

To help users stay engaged in IT, here are 3 things your IT Support should be focusing on:

1. Call Waiting—making sure user calls get answered promptly.
2. Call Handling—making sure users are not ‘tech-splained’ (i.e., help desk technicians are talking on their level and making them feel included in a ticket’s resolution).
3. Computer Headache Resolution—when it comes to brass tax, it really doesn’t matter how nice a technician was on the phone, if it takes months to resolve easy issues (most issues should be resolved on the first call), OR clients are not kept in the loop regularly with updates to more complicated issue resolutions, users are not likely to resolve their issues on their own.

The Problem Is:  most techs have a hard time communicating

Whether they’re a senior engineer at a high tech company like Amazon or Google or performing IT support roles for your business, when they talk to you about your computer headaches, they’re likely using tech lingo—acronyms and vocabulary— making it harder to stay engaged in understanding new cyber threats at your workplace.

Ultimately, miscommunications (or ‘over-the-head’ tech verbiage) leads less technically inclined team members frustrated, disengaged with identifying signs of an attack and even less likely to submit tickets for computer headaches.

What does this mean for your business: lower productivity, lower workplace morale, AND greater cybersecurity risks.

Out of a need for more speed and new ways to get ticket times down, IT Support teams often discuss, plan and implement ways of speeding up user interactions—whether via email, messaging system or over the phone. But what shortcuts often do is erode or eliminate a foundation of personal trust and respect between the IT team and your users. While I’m all for efficiency, making sure your team communicates, connects and interacts with your users on a personal level can pay off ten times in the long run.

In fact, when users have open channels of communication with their IT Support, they are:

More up front with issues and threats—many of us wouldn’t think about complaining to the waitress about the tomatoes in a salad we had just ordered with no tomatoes. Likewise, many of us wouldn’t think to bring every computer issue to the tech team. In fact more than 60% of breaches resulting in social engineering aren’t reported because users lack a foundational relationship with their IT Support.

More aware of current threats and attacks—when your team is engaged and interacting with IT Support, they are more likely to understand the current threat landscape and able to identify signs of a phishing attack or cyber threat. In fact, users that engage with their IT team are 70% less likely to be victim of social engineering attacks.

Why relationships are more important than ever?

Cybercriminal rings are spreading like wildfire and businesses are left to fend off attacks from the ground up.

Cybercrime has become big business

Criminals are flocking to the latest kit, tool and technology to exploit businesses and steal user data (for instance, employee personal information and credentials). Entrepreneurial criminals are selling ways to hack, ransom and launch effective attacks on US businesses, each selling the prospect of getting rich off of unsuspecting businesses.

Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) causes businesses of all sizes (and from all verticals) major headaches.

One of the most prosperous ways criminals are exploiting businesses is through an array of malware offerings. Whether by encrypting your network’s files and holding all of your data ransom until you pay a hefty price or a denial of service (DoS) attack where your access to a network or computer is denied, ransom attacks are becoming the new normal.

These attacks are NOT going away anytime soon. If your IT Support is not engaging and interacting with users, resolving their issues in a timely manner, communicating to them of updates to long standing issues and making sure they feel important, your workplace is likely not as safe as it should be. It only takes one unengaged employee to click on one link in a malicious email or land on a malicious website to divulge your private information: your Social Security Number, your passwords.

Are you sure your IT Support team is helping your users stay engaged and safe? Or do they treat you like another ticket in their system? Contact Us TODAY for a FREE security assessment!