Mimecast Limited, a leading email and data security company, has acquired Ataata Inc, a cybersecurity training and awareness platform designed to reduce human error in the workplace by changing the security culture in the organisations
The acquisition is expected to allow customers to measure cyber risk training effectiveness by converting behavior observations into actionable risk metrics for security professionals.
According to a research Mimecast conducted with Vanson Bourne, 90 per cent of organisations have seen phishing attacks increase over the last year, yet only 11 per cent responded that they continuously train employees on how to spot cyberattacks.
“This spans organisations of all segments and sizes including major airlines, government, healthcare - or any other industry. Training is considered hard to implement as these organisations often lack resources and the right content to help raise the awareness of what to spot,” said Mimecast.
“Human error is involved in the majority of all security breaches, and these casual mistakes can cost organisations money, their reputation – and employees, potentially their job,” said Michael Madon, CEO and co-founder of Ataata.
“Organizations need to understand that employees are their last line of defence. Cybersecurity training and awareness doesn’t need to be difficult or boring. Training and awareness are needed to help mitigate these internal risks,” Madon added.
The acquisition of Ataata is set to offer customers a single, cloud platform that is engineered to mitigate risk and reduce employee security mistakes by calculating employee security risk based on sentiment and behaviour while connecting them with relevant training that is content based on their score and recommended areas for improvement.
“Cybersecurity awareness training has traditionally been viewed as a check the box action for compliance purposes, boring videos with PhDs rambling about security or even less than effective gamification which just doesn’t work. As cyber attacks continue to find new ways to bypass traditional threat detection methods, it’s essential to educate your employees in a way that changes behaviour,” said Peter Bauer, CEO and founder of Mimecast.
