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“The recent incident impacting data of people who applied to work at the Five Guys restaurant chain is a stark reminder of the personal cost behind the vulnerability of businesses to increasingly intricate and threatening cyber attacks.

While all parts of a business can hold highly sensitive and personal information, HR departments, in particular, are a treasure trove of current and prospective employee data and must work hard to ensure it remains secure.

We know all too well that once this information is exposed, it can lead to further cyber-attacks, or it could be used for extremely targeted social engineering attacks on those involved. In this instance, thousands of jobseekers had their personal data compromised, rendering them susceptible to follow-on attacks and recruitment scams in the future.

The key lesson for businesses that hold private information is that they must have clearly defined security policies and procedures to increase their cyber resilience. It is also crucial that staff are properly trained in data protection strategies. Security awareness training programmes can now educate employees on the latest threats in real time, including information security, social engineering, malware, and industry-specific compliance topics. Attack simulations can also be used to automatically send users for re-education should any training issues be identified.”