The Human Element

1. Employees produce and use data during daily operations, hence, they are also responsible for securing and protecting it. Being a form of defense within organizations, they are either the cyber criminals themselves or are being targeted by cyber criminals. Organizations should develop measures to prevent their employees from harboring malicious intent against them and procedures on how employees can respond appropriately should they be targeted. Examples of human element cyber security threats: Social Engineering Financial Pretexting Digital Extortion Insider Threat Partner Misuse Hacktivist Attack Disgruntled Employees Types of Cyber Security Threats from 'The Human Element' (Source: Business Continuity Management Institute - BCM Institute)

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2. Human beings play a significant role in data breaches and cybersecurity incidents. This should come as no surprise – after all, we are the ones who produce, consume, use, depend on, and as a result, have to secure and protect digital data. Because of this, humans fulfill the roles of threat actors, targeted victims, cybersecurity defenders and incident response stakeholders.
Source: (Verizon, 2017)