Security awareness training is probably the most simple, yet effective way in reducing IT security threats and breaches, yet the majority of companies don’t spend nearly enough time or money training their employees. As employees are often times the weakest link of a company’s cybersecurity structure, it makes sense to incorporate a training program in any environment. Follow these 5 steps below in setting up your security awareness training program to better protect your company.
- Make it part of their job – Security is everyone’s job, not just the IT departments. Put a procedure in place to have new hires to take training courses, and make it mandatory for employees to take ongoing training throughout the year.
- Create specialized awareness and training programs – The sales team and the engineering team probably deal with different aspects of the business and therefore may be predisposed to different type of security threats.
- Don’t overload your employees – Yes, it’s part of their job, but don’t share so much information that they forget the essentials. It is better that they understand and remember the basics then to overload them with so much info, that they’d ultimately forget.
- Practice – While no one ever hopes that they suffer a breach, the fact is that you are more likely to be breached than not. Run a simulation or practice under real-life scenarios.
- Mix it up – Don’t use the same stale presentation over and over. Develop a multitude of engaging training tools to teach and train. Include tools like in person trainers, online webinars and videos, screensavers, posters, and case studies.