Even if you’re not an 80’s music aficionado, you might recall the lyrics from a Level 42 song that rationalized that “we’re only human after all.” If not, drag that Members Only jacket out of the dark recesses of your closet and crank up your Walkman. The lyric turns out, though, to be more prescient than even the hippest DJ might’ve predicted back in the day, and it’s especially telling about a world they never even saw coming: the cyberworld.

Verizon recently released its 2020 DBIR, and one of the many takeaways for Robert Hackett’s DataSheet (an industry newsletter sponsored by Fortune Media) was the fortitude of human error. As other causes of breaches like malware and hacking decline, the relative resilience of human error is notable. It alone has grown stronger since Verizon’s 2015 report. It will be interesting to see how a long period of social distancing affects social engineering in the 2021 report, but the current data suggests a closer vigilance on our human capital is warranted.

And Now For Something Darker

Staying with the human network theme, a recent ZDNet report found that the majority of employees on the way out the door take more than paper clips and staplers with them. The report suggests that exiting employees contribute to more than 60% of insider data breaches. For more specifics read the article here, and after you read it, take a quiet inventory of your staff. As noted above, they’re only human after all, and that part of the cyber business remains the toughest problem to solve consistently.

If you have staffing concerns, ICS may be able to help. We work with clients for project-based staffing needs as well as long-term and leadership needs. We’re always building the best teams possible, for us and for others. Peace of mind is always worth a call.