One of the best methods to protect your business from cyber attacks is by educating your employees about cybersecurity threats.
What This Means for Your Organization:
- Your employees are your greatest assets and vulnerabilities. Make sure they understand cybersecurity risks and how to properly protect themselves and the organization against malicious actors.
- One of the most effective ways to reduce cyber attacks is by educating and training your employees on cybersecurity tactics and how to handle them.
- Cybersecurity is always changing and adapting, so annual employee training is crucial.
Why Train Employees on Cybersecurity?
With AI thrown into the mix, cyber threats are becoming more dangerous and organizations are losing more money and data than ever before. According to IBM, 95% of cyber breaches are due to human error, but this can be significantly reduced by training your employees and educating them on cyber risks and threats.
What Should Be Included in Your Training Program for Employees?
Your cybersecurity training programs should address the following:
- Phishing awareness
- Teaching employees what phishing emails looks like, and what the potential threat might lead to can help reduce human-errors
- Password security including MFA
- Multifactor Authentication curbs foreign login attempts in case attackers are able to crack passwords
- Social engineering awareness
- Understanding how attackers might leverage AI in attack attempts through deepfakes or vishing also greatly reduces social engineering attack success rates
- Safe work from home practices
- Enforcing strict policies for device and network usage is crucial in securing employees that work from home
- How to deal with sensitive data
- Making sure to regulate access to sensitive data and enforcing sharing rules throughout the company makes sure sensitive data doesn’t reach the wrong person
- What to do if you suspect a security breach
- Training employees on how to respond to potential security breaches is key in reducing losses from a breach
- Corporate security policy review
- Having regular policy review sessions with quizzes makes sure employees read and understand the companies cybersecurity guidelines
- Social media security
- Understanding how to act on social media and not sharing work-related information is key in preventing hackers from scoping out potential targets
- Physical security
- Teaching employees not to leave external disks, passwords on sticky notes, USB sticks, or similar items out on their desks is very important since cybersecurity transcends digital devices
Ways of Training Employees on Cybersecurity
As mentioned, a crucial resource for your organization would be to utilize cyber security policies within your organization. Formal documentation is key, and making it a company wide standard will help enforce compliance with the policies. Additionally, including regular training on top of existing policy will help reinforce the importance of cybersecurity in your organization and it will allow for regular discussions to also clarify uncertainties in some employees. Making the conversation a regularity only helps improve cybersecurity posture since it lets everyone be on the same page in terms of organization security. It’s also important to keep in mind that while this is work-related training, it will also be of great benefit in personal lives as well since malicious actors use their methods on private emails, phone numbers, and devices as well.
Making sure your company trains its employees and educates them on cybersecurity is one of the best ways to protect your business from attacks. While a good cybersecurity framework consists of many pieces, education is crucial in helping your employees understand what to do and what not to do on a daily basis. As previously mentioned, IBM states 95% of all cybersecurity breaches involve human error, so making sure to inform those who are at the forefront of potential breaches is crucial.
About Total Assure
Total Assure, a spin-off from IBSS, provides uninterrupted business operations with our dedicated 24/7/365 in-house SOC, robust managed security solutions, and expert consulting services. Total Assure provides cost-efficient, comprehensive, and scalable cybersecurity solutions that leverage 30 years of experience and expertise from IBSS. Total Assure partners with its customers to identify security gaps, develop attainable cybersecurity objectives, and deliver comprehensive cybersecurity solutions that protect their businesses from modern cybersecurity threats.
For more information on how Total Assure can assist your organization, talk to a compliance expert today.
