What is security awareness training?
Security awareness training is one sub-program in an overall security program used by an organization to improve its security posture. It is an education method that is focused on all members of the organization. It is part of the strategy recommended for adoption by organizations to reduce risks posed by user behavior.
Such programs are designed to assist users in understanding their roles in combatting information security attacks and preventing security breaches. The most effective security awareness training aids personnel understand appropriate cyber hygiene, the risks associated with their actions, and how to identify cyber attacks they may encounter in email, online, and even in text messages or in-person interactions.
Why do personnel need security awareness training?
Leading research indicates human error is involved in more than 90% of security breaches. 90%.
Security awareness training helps organizations to mitigate the risk of poor decisions by users, thereby preventing the loss of intellectual property (IP), personally identifiable information (PII), financial and other assets, and/or organization reputation. The most effective awareness training programs address the common cybersecurity mistakes that users may make when reading emails, browsing the web, checking their texts, using social media, and navigating the physical world (e.g., dealing with tailgating behaviors at office security checkpoints, document disposals, what to do if they find a thumb drive, etc.).
What are best practices for how to approach awareness training?
Effective awareness training focuses on engaging users to help them learn the right lessons, thereby reducing user risk. The traditional approach—in which education best practices are often ignored in favor of rote repetition of information—has been demonstrably ineffective at changing user behaviors.
Rather than delivering forgettable—and therefore wasteful—training in single, annual sessions that overwhelm users with information, training needs to be pervasive (i.e., delivered in small doses throughout the lives of the users), consistent, adapted to employees’ busy schedules and, most importantly, combined with positive reinforcement and humor rather than using a focus on fear or detailed technical topics. This will improve retention across the user base for critical security subjects.
Phishing tests increase security awareness
Webcheck Security makes it easy to set up a phishing simulation email campaign through our Webcheck Aware training platform. We stand ready to help you deploy a customized phishing simulation to your users that will use de-weaponized attacks based on real-world examples, selected from different difficulty levels based on user behaviors and your preferences. You get to specify which employees should receive the simulated attacks, which types of attacks they'll receive, and the start and end dates of the test.
Choose Webcheck Aware security awareness training
Webcheck Aware security awareness education via simulated phishing spread out over the course of a year is a highly effective way to change users’ mindsets, attitudes, and—ultimately—behaviors related to critical security protocols. Contact Webcheck today for a free discussion of how we can best help you accomplish your security awareness objectives.