As the saying goes, “Security is only as strong as the people behind it.”
With cyberthreats growing smarter and more targeted, your first line of defense — your end users — have become potential points of vulnerability. For decades, cybersecurity strategies have focused on defending networks, securing endpoints and deploying sophisticated firewalls. However, the paradigm is quickly shifting towards a user-based model.
Business leaders and IT professionals realize that while systems are becoming more secure, users remain the weakest link and the primary target for cyberattacks. This is because the human aspect can be easily manipulated through tactics such as social engineering, making end users more vulnerable than an organization’s systems and networks. It’s no surprise that threat actors are increasingly targeting users to gain initial access to organizations. The 2024 Kaseya Cybersecurity Survey Report revealed that risky user behavior is the leading cybersecurity challenge faced by IT professionals. A lack of cybersecurity education can turn your employees into your organization’s weakest cybersecurity link.
In this article, we explore why empowering users through training, tools and proactive preventive strategies is critical to building a security-first culture and strengthening your organization’s security posture.
Understanding user-focused cyberthreats
Your end users, often unintentionally, pose a significant risk to your organization’s security. Without proper cybersecurity awareness training and preventive measures in place, they can unknowingly open the doors to a wide range of cyberthreats. Common techniques cybercriminals use to take advantage of undereducated (in terms of cybersecurity awareness) and unprepared end users include:
Phishing
Phishing schemes are the online scams of the modern era. Threat actors impersonate trusted sources to deceive unsuspecting users into divulging sensitive information, clicking on malicious links or downloading malware-infected attachments.
Spear phishing is a highly targeted form of phishing in which attackers tailor their messages to a specific individual to increase the likelihood of success.
Credential theft
Stolen usernames and passwords are a treasure trove for cybercriminals. Login credentials, whether harvested through phishing attacks or purchased on dark web marketplaces, provide attackers with direct access to an organization’s sensitive data and systems.
Social engineering
Social engineering, in simple terms, is the process of hacking the human mind. Malicious actors impersonate IT support, co-workers or bank officials to gain their trust and trick them into sharing personal details or taking certain actions against their best interests.
BEC
In a business email compromise(BEC) attack, threat actors pose as vendors or high-ranking officials of an organization to deceive employees into making unauthorized payments or sharing confidential data. BEC attacks exploit a sense of urgency, pressuring victims to act quickly.
ATO
Once attackers gain access to user accounts, they use those privileges to move laterally, escalate privileges to gain higher-level permissions for other malicious motives and establish persistence. Account takeovers (ATOs) are often a part of long-term attack campaigns where attackers slowly embed themselves deeper within an organization’s infrastructure, undetected for weeks or months.
Prevention matters now more than ever
The numbers speak for themselves. The 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report revealed that the human factor was responsible for nearly 70% of breaches. Successful cyberattacks often begin with a simple user action — a click, a download or a misplaced credential.
Responding to cybersecurity incidents can be costly, time-consuming and labor-intensive. You must consider the costs associated with incident response, legal fees, regulatory fines, loss of business and the repair of reputational damage. On the other hand, deploying reliable cybersecurity solutions like Kaseya 365 User requires far less expenditure and offers comprehensive protection against user-based threats.
Proactive prevention strategies, such as cybersecurity awareness training, automated phishing defense and continuous dark web monitoring, can significantly reduce your organization’s exposure to threats. By identifying vulnerabilities early, you can stop attacks in their tracks rather than scrambling to respond after the damage is done.
The ability to prevent threats before they cause harm helps you avoid business disruptions, downtime, costly data breach incidents and customer churn that come with reactive approaches.
MFA and 2FA: No more a silver bullet
For a long time, multifactor authentication (MFA) and two-factor authentication (2FA) were considered the ultimate defense against unauthorized access to user accounts and sensitive data. However, that’s no longer the case.
Cybercriminals have evolved and adapted. Techniques like MFA fatigue, session hijacking and man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks have made even accounts protected by MFA or 2FA no longer safe.
With the rise of generative AI, cybercriminals can now craft highly polished, personalized and convincing phishing messages at scale and automate attacks like never before. The question now is no longer if your end users will be targeted but when and how prepared your organization and users will be when the inevitable happens.
How Kaseya 365 User elevates prevention
Kaseya 365 User brings together everything you need for a modern, user-first approach to cybersecurity. With smart, proactive prevention tools, Kaseya 365 User detects risks before they become real problems. From blocking phishing attempts to minimizing credential theft, it helps reduce your vulnerability to common attacks while boosting user awareness and response time.
Kaseya 365 User helps build long-term security by identifying risky behavior, encouraging best practices and empowering your end users to make smarter decisions every day.
Here’s how Kaseya 365 User keeps you ahead of the curve:
Integrated security awareness training
Kaseya 365 User provides comprehensive training programs on data breach risks and cybersecurity best practices. These programs empower your end users to identify and stop phishing threats confidently while also supporting compliance with cyber insurance requirements and industry regulations.
When you subscribe to Kaseya 365 User, you gain access to a wide variety of engaging, multilingual training content and customizable phishing simulation kits. Built-in smart automation makes it easy to launch training and generate reports with minimal effort.
Advanced email security and anti-phishing protection
Kaseya 365 User puts advanced phishing defense at your fingertips with an AI-powered solution that protects employee inboxes from ransomware, BEC and other threats.
Our powerful phishing defense tool integrates seamlessly with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace via API. It doesn’t require any complicated setup or email rerouting, making it easy to level up your email security and stand strong against even the most sophisticated attacks.
Dark web monitoring
Kaseya 365 User continuously monitors the dark web for leaked domains, IP addresses and email accounts related to your organization, using a powerful combination of human expertise and machine intelligence. It detects compromised credentials in dark web markets and data dumps, enabling you to act before attackers do to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data. It also provides timely, actionable insights, empowering your IT team to close security gaps and boost defenses.
Strengthen end-user protection with Kasey 365 User
In an era where cybercrime has become a serious issue for organizations of all sizes, a prevention-first approach is no longer optional but essential. To stay ahead of emerging threats, your organization must shift its focus from protecting infrastructure alone to also protecting your end users who interact with it every day.
Kaseya 365 User, through its core cybersecurity components, creates a layered defense that focuses on your organization’s most vulnerable and most targeted asset: your end users.
With a Kaseya 365 User subscription, you get access to all the essential cybersecurity tools to prevent threats before they strike, respond quickly when they do slip through your defenses and recover seamlessly to keep your business running without interruption.
Learn more about Kaseya 365 User and how it can protect your business proactively.
