Cyber-attacks are being reported every day, and it is becoming more important for organizations and businesses to train their employees on cyber security. Several organizations have lost sensitive data and money to cyber attacks. Even with robust security infrastructure, all it takes for a successful attack against a company is a careless action taken by an employee such as using infected flash drives, downloading suspicious software or opening email attachments from unknown sources. It is, therefore, important to train your employees in cyber security best practices so they can identify threats and take steps to mitigate them.
According to Dell End User Security Survey 2017, 72 percent of employees are ready to share confidential information about their company without taking into account data security protocols. That explains why it is important for organizations to adopt cyber security awareness training. It doesn’t matter whether your organization is large or small. You need to create an awareness training for your employees so as to ensure your workplace’s data and information is safe and secure.
Awareness training brings to the attention of employees the consequences of not safeguarding their company’s system.
It can be challenging to find a balance between keeping company’s sensitive data secure and enabling your employees to maintain their productivity. To achieve a good balance, a company needs to create simple, clear policies that address most of the potential breaches.
What are some key aspects of cyber security training for employees?
- Keeping their machine free of suspicious programs, apps, and data
- Using strong and long passwords
- Backing up all work according to company’s policy
- Being vigilant and notifying IT department of any irregularity on their computer
Cyber security awareness training should be more than just a one-time seminar or course. It should form an integral part of your organization’s culture. When your organization adopts awareness training as part of its culture, you will have a secure working environment. There will be lesser risk of a security breach because your employees will embrace the culture of data security. Awareness training will help employees to understand organization policy regarding internet security, techniques that are used by cyber attackers and how to safeguard against them.
By regularly training your employees on cyber security best practices and raising their awareness, your company will benefit in the following ways:
Reduced Incidences Of Security Breaches
When you train your employees on security protocols and ensure they comply with them, you are less likely to face major security breaches and corruption of computers. This will help safeguard your company’s sensitive information and operational ability. Additionally, you are also less likely to face fines, lawsuits and security audits that results from data security breaches.
You Will Save Significant Money
Although there are costs involved to train employees regularly on cyber security, it will cost more to repair damage to computers, company’s assets, and reputation after a major security breach has occurred. In addition, trained employees can spot breaches and damage sooner, thereby allowing your company to address it quickly and minimize its impact. Ultimately, you will find out that it’s cheaper to be proactive instead of being retroactive.
Improved Staff Confidence
As technology advances, a majority of employees are left to fend majorly for themselves in a wilderness of social media platforms, new software, and more. This creates uncertainty around technology, especially data security. By holding regular cyber and data security awareness training, your staff can feel more confident using modern technology because they will know what to do and what not to do.
Customers Will Feel More Confident
Customers will be more confident providing their information to a company that has fewer incidences of breaching customer information, fewer lawsuits, and other issues.
The following steps should be taken while initiating a cyber security training program for your employees:
Step 1: You need to assess the cyber risks facing your organization that you should address in your awareness training. This could be phishing attacks, man in middle attack or data tampering. Your training content should precisely address these risks and let employees know what they should do in case they are victims.
Step 2: You need to schedule when and how the awareness training program will be delivered.
Step 3: You need to evaluate if your training is working by measuring the degree by which it has changed the attitude of your employees towards data and network security.
For organizations who don’t have the time or the resources to organize effective ongoing training, the training can be outsourced to specialized cyber security training providers with extensive experience in the field. It will help prepare your company for the future.
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In case you’re anxious about cyber security for your business, that’s actually a good thing. It implies you’re aware that cyber security threats are growing, and business organizations should be more precautious. Your initial phase in data security should always be to raise awareness and train your employees on the importance of data security and best practices. You can improve this procedure by will an assigned individual be up to date and educated in cyber security to teach the team on on a progressing premise.