Nobody wants to be that one person in the office who continually makes rookie tech mistakes. Unfortunately, that one person in the office usually turns into the entire office when good tech practices aren’t enforced, and rookie tech mistakes become company culture that put your company’s security unnecessarily at risk. Knowing what you’re doing wrong is the first step to fixing the problem and turning a rookie newbie (or an entire rookie office) into tech connoisseurs.
- You’re Clicker-Happy
The dangerous thing about this rookie mistake is that almost everyone is clicker-happy. They might not want to admit it, but the facts don’t lie. A recent study done by researchers at the Friedrich-Alexander University (FAU) in Germany found that out of 1,700 messages sent to 1,700 participants, more than 50% clicked on the unknown link. What’s worse is that 78% of the participants stated in the questionnaire that they were aware of the risks associated with clicking on the unknown links.
How to Fix It: It’s hard to say exactly how to fix the trigger-happy fingers of the majority of this generation’s workforce, but there are a few steps you can take to make sure it happens less. Ensuring your company computers are all outfitted with the right virus and spam filters is a great place to start building your line of defense should an employee click on something. And keeping your security patches current and updated is important, too. Education and training sessions are a great way to deter employees’ clicker-happy fingers by running mock phishing scenarios with them. You can also look into placing web filters on your PCs to block malicious websites or links. Think about instituting a company policy, as well, that says updates to sensitive information or personal account details will only be applied directly to a computer, not via an email, that way employees know what to look out for.
- Poor Passwords
If your password follows a general sequence of numbers or letters (something similar to A, B, C; 1 ,2, 3; or a personal favorite: “password”), you’re absolutely doing password protection wrong. If it’s easy to remember, it’s just as easy to hack, which means unfortunately for the non-creative types, it’s time to get creative. The risk of having a company device compromised by an unauthorized third party is real, and if your password is weak, the likelihood of that company device being hacked increases dramatically. Here’s a startling fact: 80% of security incidents were due to the use of weak administrative passwords (Lastpass.com). When more than half of security incidents are caused by something as easy to fix as password strength, poor password protection jumps to the front of the line for one of the worst rookie tech mistakes you could make.
How to Fix It: Fixing this rookie tech mistake is easy— improve your password strength! Avoid obvious things like birthdays and other important dates, one word names like “password,” or sequential numerical or alphabetical lists. If you can come up with it easily, don’t use it. Picking random letters and numbers is a great way to ensure the uniqueness of your password and keeping it on the longer side reduces the chances of someone being able to guess your password. If you need to write it down to remember it, it’s probably worth it.
- Using Technology Beyond Its Shelf Life
Using tech beyond its shelf-life should be considered a mortal sin, because you’re not just hurting yourself, you’re actively driving current and potential clients away. Outdated tech is a big deal, and here’s why. In a study published by Microsoft, more than 90% of consumers said they would consider taking their business elsewhere rather than work with a business using outdated technology. That’s a big percentage to take a gamble on outdated tech with. 61% of people admitted to thinking companies are outdated for using operating systems more than four years old. What’s worse? It’s expensive. The cost to run Windows XP (which support ended for in 2014) per year is $780. The cost to support Windows 8 is $168 per year. And the cost to support Windows Server 2003 per year is $200,000. Overall, the cost to support any outdated tech is huge, and isn’t worth the risk.
How to Fix It: Make sure you’re using up-to-date technology and don’t try and save money by sticking with older systems. Common areas most rookies look to hold onto their outdated tech is with operating systems and hardware, like a good hard drive. Hard drives in particular can average a lifespan of about three to five years, but have the potential to last longer or less than. The bottom line is: when something seems like it’s expired, update it.
- No Security or Backups
This rookie tech mistake will cost you big. Large U.S. organizations lose about 2.2% of their annual income to security attacks. How much are you losing due to poor security? 34% of companies fail to test their tape backups, and out of those that do, 77% found tape-backup failures. How secure are your backups? Do you even have them? These are the questions rookies don’t ask, which lead to rookie tech mistakes being made in security and backups. Not having strong security policies or backups in place means big loss, so don’t make this rookie mistake.
How to Fix It: It doesn’t take a lot to implement basic security practices into your business. Enforcing strong password security policies for everything from your PCs to your servers, network equipment, and software applications improves your protection tenfold, while updating your systems with the latest security patches and firewalls keep you safe, too. Backup your data regularly to ensure you’re doing it enough, and make sure to save your company’s data in several different places, not just the Cloud. Also be sure to keep physical and digital copies of your data for double insurance should anything go wrong.
- You Look at IT as a Cost, Not an Investment
And finally, the worst rookie tech mistake anyone could ever make is probably looking at tech as a cost, which the majority of people do. What’s wrong with this ideology towards technology? It often leads to the least-expensive option being chosen as opposed to the most efficient option being chosen, which inevitably leads to a business running as least efficiently as it can. It also leads to future expenses when things begin to break down or stop working, and instead of making one big investment, companies find themselves continually out of pocket year-round.
How to Fix It: Change your outlook on technology. Instead of approaching new tech as an expensive headache, look at it as something that will benefit your company for years to come. Technology has become a core function of most, if not all, modern, successful businesses, and to compete, you have to look at technology as a necessary core function of your company. The next time you have to make a major tech decision, challenge your rookie ways and think of it as an investment, not money lost.
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