Many employees are unaware of the potential security risks they might pose. Employees must be made aware of social engineering attacks such as phishing, smishing, ransomware, etc. As in the last decade, 86% of cyber attacks are led by phishing vectors. Thus, organizations must train employees about cybersecurity practices and proactive measures to safeguard themselves against most cyber attacks.
Regardless of how advanced your cybersecurity systems are, your organization is only vulnerable to cyber attacks if your employees are trained to recognize and respond to them. That’s why it is essential to conduct a cybersecurity awareness training program regularly.
Security awareness training should be one of your top priorities for businesses or C-suite executives responsible for business continuity and security. By 2027, the market for security awareness training will be projected to grow from $1 billion to $10 billion. In the age of technological advancement, people and businesses of all sizes are on the verge of financial losses or reputational damage due to cyber threats.
Read more: Security Awareness Training for Employees
With appropriate comprehensive security awareness training, you can rest assured that your employees are well acquainted with the latest and most dangerous security threats which can disrupt your company’s digital infrastructure. In this article, we will cover cybersecurity awareness training and cybersecurity awareness tips to ensure an effective cyber resilient organization.
What Is Security Awareness?
Security awareness training aims to minimize the risk of privacy invasion, intellectual property theft, financial loss, and brand reputation loss. Cybersecurity awareness training can help employees avoid mistakes like tailgating or improper document disposal when working on emails, the web, and in person.
Employees are regarded as the first line of defense for any company. 95% of all cyber-attacks are caused by a mistake made by a human in the form of a breach.
Regardless of how technologically advanced security measures are in place, people are always vulnerable to threats such as phishing attacks or online scams, no matter how much you safeguard them. Employees are the prime medium for cybercrime to fool and get access to the system or data. Furthermore, they can infect the system with malware or encrypt the data.
Thus, security awareness training for employees facilitates one of the essential components of combating and defending cyber risks. A company’s cybersecurity relies on their knowledge, understanding, and attitudes about the assets that it owns, both physical and informational. These three elements constitute a company’s cyber awareness.
Read more: Benefits and Purpose of Security Awareness Training
How Does Cybersecurity Awareness Training Help?
Earlier, cybersecurity awareness training was often seen as a compliance measure that had to be completed rather than its true benefit. Things have changed in the last decade, and cybersecurity training is now viewed as a crucial component of any organization’s security strategy and has become a necessity for organizations.
Several factors are responsible for these changes in attitudes towards security. The sophistication and frequency of cyberattacks are increasing. Almost every day, we hear about a company being hacked. Since these incidents are becoming more common, employees must learn how to protect themselves and their companies.
Secondly, these cyberattacks are incurring huge financial damage to organizations and the cost can be up to millions of dollars. According to IBM reports, approximately $4.35 million will be spent on cybersecurity breaches in 2022.
Read more: How Effective Security Awareness Training Really Is?
Are Security Awareness Training Effective?
A number of factors can influence the effectiveness and ROI of security awareness training, including the format, channels, and frequency of delivery, among others. Training employees can be a highly effective method of reducing human error, improving daily security behavior, and ensuring compliance with regulatory standards is met.
According to a recent study, 80% of organizations reported that their employees were less susceptible to phishing attacks after undergoing security awareness training. It takes time for a reduction in risk to occur, but it can happen quickly, with regular training showing a reduction in risk from 60% to 10% within the first year.
Ways to Make Your Security Awareness Training Work
Investing in employee training is one of the best things you can do for your business. Here is list of topics to make the awareness training effective for your organization:
Run Phishing Simulations
The first and foremost way to implement security awareness training in your business is by running a phishing simulation program. However, you are responsible for training the employees to detect suspicious emails and related cyber-attacks. With Threatcop Security Awareness Training, you can carry out cyber attack simulations (for WhatsApp phishing, smishing, ransomware, phishing) and security awareness training using various awareness content (such as cyber comics, infographics, posters, interactive quizzes, time-saver videos, etc.) to educate employees about different types of cyber threats and how to prevent them.
Analyze the Training’s Impact
A key element to ensuring that your training is effective and leaving a positive impact on your business is to measure the impact of the training so that you can report on the effectiveness of your approach and assess possible human risk areas.
TSAT provides an interactive quiz at the end of the awareness campaign to evaluate the viability and success of training. It also helps to access the vulnerability level of employees and improve it. This is recorded in the form of employee vigilant score and helps in the implementation of awareness training.
Provide a Variety of Content
To create a successful security program, the awareness content that serves the training program should include cyber comics, time-saver videos, interactive quizzes, scenario-based simulations, infographics, wallpapers, etc. These awareness contents are provided in the form of a module to train the employees in different verticals such as finance, communication, data handling, etc.
Make Awarness Training Rewarding for Employees
There is no reason that training has to be boring and monotonous. Engaging your audience requires a strong sense of emotion. It is known that humor can positively impact training in several ways. Reward the people who have participated and interacted with you. Freebies and prizes can be offered to the participants. Giveaway prizes for answering questions correctly, and announce a raffle or a giveaway at the end of the session as an incentive to keep people engaged for the entire time.
Engage a Diverse Group of Team Members
Security is a matter that affects everyone. A program that features a diverse team of trainers from different departments, such as R&D, marketing, HR, sales, and sales training, has many benefits. It is possible to make training more representative by providing a relatable use case or context that a traditional security trainer may have overlooked. This strategy makes training more representative. Your security team could have better communication skills regarding their work.
Employee Awareness: Goal of Awareness Training
The organizations should emphasize strongly on employee awareness by providing them cybersecurity training. Since the employees are the first line of defense, the organizations need to ensure that they are the strongest line of defense. However, many studies and research articles have presented the effectiveness of these training in the reduction of cyber attacks across different businesses. So, what are you waiting for? Check Threatcop Security Awareness Training solution now and evaluate the product yourself!
FAQs: Effectiveness of Cybersecurity Training
What should be included in security awareness training?
The following topics should be included in your security awareness training.
- Phishing.
- Ransomware.
- Social Engineering.
- WhatsApp Phishing
- Email Phishing
- Email Spoofing
- Domain Spoofing
- Smishing
- Malware Attack
How can security awareness training be made more effective?
Security awareness training can be made effective by employing the awareness content that is based on real-life cyber attack cases. They must include different types of materials to ensure the engagement such as cyber comics, time-saver videos, infographics, wallpapers, posters, quizzes, etc. The most important element of making awareness training effective is by conducting regular attack simulation to evaluate the vulnerability level of employees.
What is the average time to build a security awareness training program?
A security awareness program takes a variety of technologies and methodologies to implement. Traditionally, building awareness programs requires extensive research and time, which needs to be updated time and again. In terms of resource management, it is quite costly for organizations. That’s why every organization must employ a third-party security solution such as TSAT to implement the awareness program, which in itself is evolving and highly cost efficient.
