About the Human Element
People are the weakest link in any cybersecurity plan.
The Human Element was born out of the realization not enough was being done to address the human component of data breaches, ransomware attacks, and malicious hacking. The goal of the Human Element is to encourage collaboration and participation while providing education to help raise everyone’s awareness of how to recognize social engineering and scams that lead to cyber-attacks.
According to the 2021 Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report, 85% of all breaches involved the human element. This is almost always some form of social engineering or scam though sometimes it is insider threats. Most companies address this with required yearly training in the form of a video, a 10 question quiz (that you’re usually allowed to retake), and a sign-off indicating you watched the video. A lot of IT Service Providers do not provide anything beyond a partnership with a training company that does the same thing.
The Human Element is a blog and podcast focused on helping individuals and businesses understand how to recognize and combat social engineering, phishing, and scams that often lead to breaches or financial loss. There is more planned in the future but we will leave it at that for now.
Scott Gombar is the owner of Nwaj Tech – A Client-Focused, Security Minded, Proactive IT service provider based in Central Connecticut. Nwaj Tech is a Managed Service Provider and offers a security stack similar to most qualified MSPs. During the first 3 years serving clients as an MSP Scott realized not enough was being done to address the Human Element of cybersecurity. After some time and a keen understanding of social engineering and all that is associated with social engineering Scott started putting together the Human Element.
The initial launch of this project includes a blog and podcast. There is a lot more in the works and the Human Element project will likely evolve over time as most things do in the technology world.
We’d love to hear from you. If you have ideas, suggestions, or want to be a guest on the podcast send us an email info@thehumanelement.net.
We hope you find the Human Element useful and helpful in raising awareness of the people problem in cybersecurity.
