See? They’re not just bad at showing up to work on time and actually, you know, working, they suck at online security, too. What can’t millenials do? Rhetorical question aside, (the answer is everything, FYI), millennials are turning into serial screwups with stuff your company should be worried about—online security.
Your businesses’ online security is no joke, and yet in 2014, 348 million personal accounts were exposed. 594 people were affected internationally, and millenials made up almost half of that statistic. For supposedly being the most tech-savvy generation, my grandpa’s double authentication sure as hell makes them look like the security newbs they are.
Oh, but it doesn’t just stop at their personal accounts, either. This is a business article, afterall, and according to this security survey conducted by T-Systems, the root cause of poor millennial security practices in business is overconfidence. Out of the 2,000 millennial employees that were interviewed, half of the respondents considered themselves to be “very knowledgeable” about cybersecurity.
Here’s the kicker: out of every generation, millennials single-handedly have the worst password reuse habits, they accept social media invites from people they don’t know, they rank highest among employees most-likely to find security workarounds, and, in a nutshell, they don’t care about business security because it’s too time-consuming. (Software Advice, Are Millennials the Latest Security Threat?)
Let’s put that into statistical perspective, shall we?
- 85% of millennials admit to re-using credentials across sites and services.
- 16% accept social media invites from people they never met and do not know.
- 56% admitted they would “very” or “moderately likely” evade restrictive workplace controls.
- Less than 15% of millennials are interested in workplace security training.
Yay millennials! In your young and misguided attempts to save time at work by evading simple security practices, you could potentially cost your place of business and employer an average of $358 per screw-up and about 21 hours wasted in downtime and recovery.
When all is said and done, millennials care more about nostalgia-driven memes and gifs that recall a time in their life when the hardest work they had to do was go to school. And if your not emphasizing business security or employing security guidelines for your company to follow, your millennial employees sure as hell aren’t following any type of common sense protocol.
Never assume your employees are keeping your business protected, and make sure you have a legitimate security policy put in place, because the only thing worse than millenials screwing up online security are the 48% of baby boomers using their personal devices to access all those important work files. But that’s for another article entirely.
zbrella Technology Consulting is an IT Helpdesk and Cybersecurity Solutions firm that helps businesses train their employees against cyber threats. Need employee training? Want to monitor your employees online and work habits? Call 718-355-9155 today.
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