How to create a cybersecurity employee training program?
This year since offices turned to remote work and Covid-19 scams took place, there’s one takeaway from these incidents that your employees contribute in reinforcing, or undermining your organization’s security solutions. Although end-users have always been considered the largest attack surface to businesses, with the move to remote work, employees can be a risk to the companies as well. If you have not already, this is the time to make a suitable effort for training your employees about security threats and practices. That can be achieved by designing an effective employee training program that covers all the blind spots, engages the audience, create customized content as per your industry needs.
- Address Common Security Misconceptions among employees
When it comes to cyberthreats, so many stories and theories are passed on that it becomes difficult to separate fact and fiction. Some of the common security misconceptions are:
- 14% of employees believe that proximity leads to infection. They believe that if their device is physically close to one infected with malware, it increases the chances of their device getting infected.
- 69% of employees think they can store any type of data anywhere. They believe storing personal data on their work devices is not in violation of company security policies.
- Many employees think that there is little risk in having unencrypted data stored on their work devices.
- 32% of employees believe that authentication isn’t necessary and not password protecting their laptop or mobile devices compounds to little risk.
- Assess the cost of Poor Security Training
Email is still the most vulnerable factor for security attacks such as ransomware, business email compromise, and brand impersonation scams. Even pre–Covid-19, companies were struggling to secure their email to avoid these attacks.
A vast number of industries have seen an increase in web and email spoofing threats, phishing attacks, and downtime following a hacking-event. Yet more than half do not plan any awareness training for employees regularly. If employees keep struggling to identify phishing attacks, it won’t be long before someone clicks something they shouldn’t. What will that cost your company is for you to assess. Will your business be able to afford the downtime, data loss, and reputational damage?
- User Engagement
For a successful training program that aims to promote a more cyber secure working environment, employee engagement and retention is key. Here are some tips to do that-
- Mass spear-phishing staff will let you test your employees’ ability to distinguish genuine email content from malicious attachments.
- Encourage the use of cybersecurity practices at home and on personal devices too because these are transferable skills and doing so will make employees more used to these practices.
- Come up with a way to measure end-user cybersecurity awareness. It can be done by rewarding staff members who follow best practices. The Reward system always provides the best results.
- Leverage social media platforms and tools to spread helpful security content, tips, and strategies to spread awareness.
