In the age of digital transformation, companies and organizations of all sizes are including more online and cloud-based solutions. As part of this natural progression toward an optimized digital future for historically non-digital businesses, cybersecurity has become an integral part of every digital transformation strategy.
Cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated, more targeted, and more effective.
Businesses realize the importance of cybersecurity awareness and cybersecurity training for their entire organization, not just a few employees. Let’s first define what cybersecurity awareness and cybersecurity training are before focusing on the benefits of each and how to improve both as part of a strategic plan to enhance overall security posture and bolster your human firewall.
What is Cybersecurity Awareness?
Cybersecurity awareness is defined as possessing the knowledge and understanding potential cyber threats present and hot to best prevent them. Creating a cyber aware culture within the workplace is crucial to maintaining high-level cybersecurity posture.
Understanding the importance of protecting sensitive, private, privileged data and knowing how to best defend against cyber threats and cyberattacks are irreplaceable components of any holistic cybersecurity strategy.
What is Cybersecurity Training?
Cybersecurity training refers to the education of employees on cybersecurity best practices, policies, and procedures. Active learning is a key and necessary component of a solid cybersecurity training program.
A best-practice mentality will aim to improve cybersecurity awareness and help employees understand the role they play in protecting sensitive data and information from cybercriminals.
Benefits of Cybersecurity Awareness and Cybersecurity Training for Employees
Improved Cybersecurity Awareness
It may seem obvious, but the most significant benefit of a cyber aware staff is a reduced risk of being exploited by cyber threats and cyberattacks.
Cybersecurity training for employees improves cybersecurity awareness. Providing employees with necessary cybersecurity training and education allows each employee to readily identify a potential cyber threat and understand how to prevent them. This increased cyber awareness helps create a culture of cybersecurity focus within the organization, an environment where employees understand the importance of protecting sensitive data and systems.
Reduced Risk of Cyberattacks
Cybersecurity training helps reduce the risk of cyberattacks by teaching employees about cyber threat tactics and methods as well as how to prevent them. With proper cybersecurity training, employees can identify and report suspicious activity.
Your employees are your first and last lines of cyber defense and equipping your human firewall with the right cybersecurity training can dramatically improve your overall cybersecurity posture.
Regulatory Compliance
Checking the boxes is often a major component of instituting new processes and training. Several industries, like healthcare and finance, have to meet certain data privacy requirements when it comes to cybersecurity and cybersecurity awareness.
Cybersecurity training ensures employees understand regulatory compliance, thus reducing the risk of fines or penalties associated with non-compliance.
Increased Productivity
Disruptions in operations are costly. Battling significant downtime and productivity loss leads to a decrease in revenue. Not being able to process customer or client invoices, bills, or statements leaves organizations vulnerable to missing out on the funds necessary to conduct business and provide accurate information both internally and externally.
With a robust, effective cybersecurity awareness training program, employees can identify suspicious activity and report it before it’s too late, reducing the risk of costly downtime and keeping productivity humming. Operations downtime is often overlooked when considering the ROI of a cybersecurity awareness training program.
Enhanced Reputation
Most organizations love positive media coverage but being associated with a negative headline like a data breach or a successful cyberattack draws the wrong kind of attention.
Demonstrating data integrity and training staff to spot potential cyber threats allows organizations to promote their commitment to cybersecurity and protecting partners, staff, and customers alike.
A steadfast commitment to cybersecurity awareness rooted in protecting sensitive data can improve organizational reputation and increase customer trust and brand loyalty.
How to Improve Your Cybersecurity Awareness and Cybersecurity Training
As cybercriminals gain access to new tools, it’s important to remember even the best cyberdefense systems and technology have gaps. We still have to deal with people in any line of work and that means there’s potential for human error. Enhancing your human firewall by creating a culture of cybersecurity awareness built on solid cybersecurity training is crucial.
Phishing training and phishing simulation are the most commonly forgotten components of a holistic cybersecurity awareness training strategy. By providing specific phishing training to employees and staff, your team becomes more cyber aware.
Consistent phishing training content and course outlining the latest in phishing tactics keeps your workforce ahead of the curve and ready to defend against the most sophisticated phishing attacks.
In addition to phishing training courses, regularly testing your staff with phishing simulation software to replicate current, timely, topical phishing attacks relevant to specific job functions can reduce the risk of clicking on fraudulent links and increase the likelihood of reporting to IT security personnel.
Having an incident response strategy outlining the reporting structure of suspicious activity will allow the IT security team to address and quarantine malicious emails from other users and eliminate the cyber threat before it is proliferated within the organization.
To develop a customized, tailored phishing training and phishing simulation campaign layered in with comprehensive cybersecurity awareness training content, contact us today for a demonstration of our platform.
