Mr Bediako-Poku who is also the Vice President of Information Systems Audits and  Control Association (ISACA) Accra Chapter, noted that in order to make passwords stronger and increase the security of businesses’ sensitive information, employees must be educated as to what represents a strong password.

He said that one of the major challenges associated with office security had  always been the ‘people’ factor, as majority of breeches usually start with the people. “It takes people to configure, it takes people to respect rules, it takes people to swipe cards, it takes people to set strong passwords, it takes people to download malicious attachments to emails; so it has always been people,” he added.

Mr Bediako-Poku stated during an IT panel discussion in Accra dubbed “Home and  Office Security Seminar: Threat and Risk Management”, organised by the PCN Information Communication Technology Training Centre.The event aims at creating more awareness on the need to be security conscious at home and workplace and the current trends on how to protect soft information.

Mr Bediako-Poku said there was a need to work on the people, after getting the  technology and processes right.He suggested that all employees should be educated on the importance of cyber security and should observe information security health checks; such as basic  controls, access management, data classification and abiding by organisational  policies.

Mr Kobina Nkum Akwa, an IT Governance Expert, also urged the public to be mindful  of their personal security in their homes and work places; as most attackers still relied on poor security habits of the public to succeed in their operations.

He pointed out that technology was inevitable; so businesses needed to capitalise  on it properly to ensure that they use it to their advantage, regardless of the threats it poses. Mr Akwa said everyone needed to be extra vigilant; declaring that issues regarding security had the risk factor and so people should be proactive in putting up preventive measures to curb such risks.

Mr Prince Kpasra, Manager of PCN Training Centre, in an interview with the Ghana  News Agency, said the seminar aimed at sensitising the public to be security conscious wherever they find themselves. Mr Kpasra said with regards to security, the citizenry must be proactive and  noted that thinking of a possibility of a problem was always necessary to find  counter measures.

“There are lots of threats in our environment and lots of vulnerability within  our own internal system and these two things poses risk to us; therefore, creating the awareness now and addressing challenges was a laudable initiative,” he stated.