The increasing number of severe cyberattacks on businesses should be a clear sign that every company must partake in updated security training. Educated workers are a powerful line of defense against incursions from cyberattacks.
However, it is not enough to simply find a generalized security video and spent the hour after lunch watching it. Stakeholders need to engage the workers in the training process, and we are going to show you five ways to make that happen.
1. Individualize the Training for Your Business
In the field of medicine, a phrase exists: when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.
In other words, you should be training your employees to identify the threats that they are most likely to face. For many businesses, phishing attacks, physical security errors, and poor computer habits are the most likely ways that issues will arise.
You should also create different variations of the training so that employees only get training that is relevant to their role in the company. Employees are more likely to pay attention and retain information that is relevant to them.
2. Focus on Building Awareness
Having good business security is not always about educating all workers to detect and act on high-level threats.
Building awareness is a more approachable and significant element of training that every business can take part in.
Posting reminders about security rules, incentivizing knowledge acquisition, and recognizing good practices when you see them in the workplace can increase awareness and prevent security incidents from happening in the future.
3. Training Must Be Engaging
If you put on a video for security training and follow it up with a brief quiz, practically nobody will internalize the information.
A better way to go about training workers is by giving them real-life scenarios and simulations to drive home the proper response to security threats in your workplace. This will look different for every business. The goal is to create hands-on situations where workers can learn and be tested in situations that will seem real.
4. Security Training Should Be Interesting
Boring security training will be forgotten as soon as the lights come back on after the hour-long, monotonous video. Interesting training provides better results.
An example of interesting security training is introducing an outsider to the workplace who tries to convince workers that they are part of the team and then tries to get secure information from them.
Then, you hold a meeting at the end of the exercise, explain what happened, and go over the results. The training is engaging, meaningful, and representative of a real threat.
5. Keep It Simple
Lastly, you need to keep training simple. Every business has a few stakeholders that need to have top-flight security skills or maintain contact with those who have them.
Most workers need to understand the basics such as:
- Email policies (94% of malware is delivered via email.)
- Encryption basics
- Incident responses
- Password policies
Training should be somewhat frequent, as brief as necessary, and end with the reminder that reporting cybersecurity incidents, even if it’s their fault, is something from which they can learn and not an act for which they will be punished.
Engaging your team in security training can be difficult, but the outcomes are greatly beneficial. Workers are more likely to embrace the knowledge and act on your teachings instead of seeing training as a waste of their time.
Setting up the courses and identifying segment-specific training for different tiers of workers may seem daunting, but it is possible to obtain help from security experts to streamline this process.
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