Having all the relevant security measures in place to secure your business from cyber attacks is vital. However, an area often overlooked is staff training and awareness, empowering your staff to be your best line of defense by implementing security training, will help your business withstand cyberattacks and carry out business as usual.
Security and awareness training should be part of your regular business security policy and made mandatory.
Cybercriminals target your staff to gain access to sensitive business data. However, if your staff receive regular security awareness training, their calculated decision-making and quick response can effectively block deceiving threats.
Security Culture and Its Influence on Employees
Conducting a once off staff training session for the sake of compliance does not adequately benefit your business’ cybersecurity posture. It is regular security awareness training that can truly protect your business from looming cyberthreats that are constantly on the rise.
The aim of developing a security-focused culture is to nurture positive security habits within an organization. There are a number of simple habits that can be put into practice, for example locking of a computer screen when leaving a workstation.
Empowering staff with regular training will enable them to be more aware of the business’ security policies and will help them realize that their employer’s cybersecurity is their responsibility as well.
Tips to Implement Effective Security Awareness Training
Until recently, companies conducted security awareness training once a year. Remember having to meet at a venue, register or sign in on arrival and then find a seat? The training session was conducted using a PowerPoint presentation. Most of these training sessions would involve a day out of the office. This type of training session proved to be ineffective because of their uninteresting nature and lack of follow-up sessions.
If you intend to develop a security-focused culture, implementing robust security awareness training is crucial. Here are a few tips that can help you effectively implement security training:
Make the training sessions interactive –
Your staff will show more interest if you deliver training in high-quality video format since it grabs more attention. Add text content only as a complementary piece to the video. Ensure that the presentation is appealing to your staff so that they do not miss out on important details. Also, make sure your staff can clear their doubts through face-to-face discussions or virtual conversations with subject matter experts.
Break the training into smaller modules –
Since the attention span of your staff will almost certainly vary from one to another, breaking training sessions into smaller modules will help them retain information faster as a whole. You can regularly send training modules to your staff to ensure they are up to speed on the latest security topics. Smaller units have a better chance of retention than lengthy pieces of content.
Facilitate self-paced learning –
Give your staff the freedom to learn at their convenience. This, of course, does not mean deadlines should not be set either. Make sure you give your staff sufficient time to complete each training module based on its complexity.
Training must include relevant material –
The training material must not contain any outdated information. Given how quickly the cyberthreat landscape is changing, the training must be updated regularly and must cover new cyberthreats so hackers don’t end up tricking your staff. Please remember that the content should not be overly technical. The training material must be imparted in an easy-to-understand manner, so staff have no trouble applying it in daily work scenarios.
Conduct reviews with quizzes and mock drills –
To assess your staffs preparedness, you must conduct regular tests, including mock drills, that assess alertness based on their response to simulated scams.
Empower your staff to be your best line of defense
Regular security awareness training can help develop a transformative security culture within your business, thus enabling your staff to detect sophisticated cyberthreats and undertake adequate action.
We understand that implementing robust security awareness training can be a bit challenging. Never fear, Exodesk is here to help you seamlessly integrate security awareness training into your business operations to make your staff the first line of defense against existing or imminent cyberthreats. Get in touch with us today and let us get started.
