Components of Security Fatigue and How to Avoid It

What Is Security Fatigue?

As a business owner, it can be frustrating to find that your employees are not following security protocols correctly. This could be them opening emails with suspicious links, using weak passwords, and ignoring computer or anti-virus software updates. If they are doing this, it could be that they have Security Fatigue. 

This is defined as a weariness to deal with computer security and can be due to people feeling overwhelmed or bombarded by different security aspects they need to do. Essentially, users get tired of having to remember multiple logins and steps to remain secure online. This is bad as it not only goes against many companies’ policies, but it can also potentially expose sensitive data and could lead to reputation and financial loss.

Where in the past when the internet was fairly new, people only had to remember a few passwords. Now they’re having to remember 20-30, or keep a record of all of them. This can be a reason for security fatigue.

How to Overcome Security Fatigue

Get a password manager – to overcome employees feeling overwhelmed with trying to remember many passwords, you could install password managers on their computers. This will create strong passwords for the users and then store them somewhere safe so the user doesn’t need to remember numbers of different passwords.

Set out guidelines for email links – It is important to train your employees on what they should click on and what they shouldn’t. Help them to recognize potential spam links and not to click on them. 

Use secure connections – In a time when more people than ever are working remotely, it is vital to stress the importance of secure connections. If an employee is using a laptop in a coffee shop for example, and looking at documents on an insecure network it can put your company at risk. Ensure they know to log into a VPN and only connect to secured Wifi. You can have an electronic reminder pop up to simplify the procedure and remind the user.

Ensure devices are up to date – While regular non-IT staff might find this a nuisance, you could use security and IT staff to update devices as and when they need it. You can also put a reminder at the footer of internal emails reminding people to say yes to any impending updates to their machine.

Encouraging employees to report any suspicious activities – If a staff member clicks on a link that is suspicious, they might not report it due to fear of being in trouble for it. Remind them that human-errors do occasionally happen – just not to make a habit of it. By them coming forward, the ramifications of their error can be amended much quicker. 

These are some of the main components of security fatigue, alongside top tips of how to avoid and fix this. You could use managed cybersecurity to ensure you are as secure as possible.