Alongside ensuring the day-to-day elements of their business are running successfully, CEOs hold a big responsibility in maintaining the security of their network.

How they handle network security and delegate responsibilities to maintain it are often based on their own beliefs about technology and how it relates to security. Unfortunately, while all CEOs have the best intentions and believe their organization is doing everything it can to counter cybersecurity concerns some of these beliefs miss the mark and leave their organization open to vulnerabilities.

Below, we bust some of these cyber security myths and discuss the truth about each belief.

Cyber Security Myth #1: Hackers are Incredibly Smart

When a CEO has the time to watch a movie or television show that features a hacker, the character has a brilliant mind and can crack any password in a matter of minutes – for good or evil.

Most hackers are not sophisticated IT geniuses. They’ve either learned the hacking trade themselves or have been taught by someone who has done it before.

The people who end up getting hacked lack the level of IT knowledge of the hacker (which isn’t much to begin with) and therefore assume that this form of witchcraft is super sophisticated. It’s not.

This leads us to the second cyber security myth:

Cyber Security Myth #2: You Can’t Beat a Hacker

Because it is assumed that hackers are geniuses, it is also assumed that their tactics are bulletproof. Hackers are opportunistic – and take advantage of weak defenses to make their magic happen.

Some CEOs instruct their IT department to always assume a breach and put strategies in place to detect them early on and slow them down after they have infiltrated their environment.

If you treat your IT infrastructure as a castle, your IT strategy should be an alligator filled moat. Focus on risk reduction and proactively manage your IT to avoid being hacked in the first place.

Cyber Security Myth #3: If We’re Complaint We’re Secure

Being complaint with industry best-practices and being certified is a requirement but only takes you so far. In order to build consumer, patient or internal trust, CEOs will go out of their way to ensure their organization is compliant in anything it can achieve – even if those compliance measures conflict with one another. In the event the organization is hacked, being compliant can possibly be enough to hold up in court and lessen the blow.

Most password requirements follow outdated information, and recent studies have indicated that shorter dynamically generated passwords containing numbers and special characters that are constantly being changed may actually be easier to crack than those uniquely crafted within an organization.

Compliance helps build trust but only goes so far in ensuring actual network security.

Cyber Security Myth #4: The Current Level of Employee Training Received Is Enough

Social engineering is perhaps the largest cyber security threat facing organizations today. While most CEOs acknowledge that social engineering can be a problem, the time devoted to educating employees on the subject is inadequate. The lack of training in this area makes end users a prime target for unintentionally putting data into the wrong hands.

Cyber Security Myth #5: All Our Patches Are Up-to-Date

What CEO or CIO can say with complete certainty that 100% of their programs on every workstation in the organization are up-to-date? What about routers, firewalls and servers? IoT devices connecting to the network? Even if 99.9% of connected systems are patched, that 0.1% leaves a vulnerability. Hackers are much more likely to take advantage of a niche app that flies under the radar over something like your Windows operating system.

Cyber Security Myth #6: The IT Department Has Everything Under Control

You hire an IT team because they are professionals in their field and theoretically can ensure that your IT is invincible. Is your entire team on the same page about the biggest threats to your organization? Do they have the data to back it up? Are they putting their resources into the right places?

Bonus Cyber Security Myth: IT is More Affordable & Flexible In-House

Working with a trusted Managed Services provider ensures that security is a top priority for your organization, and costs a lot less than you could imagine. ThrottleNet Managed Network services help streamline your internal processes, improve productivity and ensure your network is proactively monitored against incoming threats. Contact us today to learn how we can develop a custom solution for your business.