Security awareness training refers to the training program conducted by an organization to educate their employees or students against potential threats of malicious cyberattacks. It is a time-proven method to raise awareness about various risks and control procedures to mitigate them. Security awareness training aims to ensure a safe work environment that is free from cyberattacks, ransomware, phishing, malware, etc. Every organization should administer security awareness training regularly in order to keep their employees well-versed with the latest developments.
Security awareness training can be broadly classified into three main categories:
1. Training modules and content
Every effective security awareness training program should emphasize imparting knowledge about cybersecurity threats. Training programs should include topics such as physical security, privacy, password management and social engineering. This training provides in-depth knowledge to the users about various frauds, how they are executed and the course of action to be taken to report the occurrence of frauds.
Methods of administering the training program vary from institution to institution depending on the business profile. Institutions must provide educational content in the form of blogs, interactive images, videos and fraud simulations. Study modules should be divided into small manageable sections in order to make them engaging and effective.
2. Phishing simulations
Phishing attacks use malicious websites and emails to infect systems with viruses and malware in order to steal financial and personal information. To minimize data thefts, institutions provide phishing simulations to their users. Phishing simulations refer to the process of creating replicas of the target emails to dupe the readers. Testing teams create an attractive template and send it to students and employees. Phishing emails appear like regular emails and start with a congratulatory message such as, “Click here to claim your reward points.” This method attempts to identify whether users are able to suspect threats or not. Users that fail to identify phishing simulations are directed to undergo a refresher course.
3. Analysis and reporting
The prime function of a reliable security awareness training program is the preparation of comprehensive reports on user activities. These reports help the security teams to identify the users who have completed training modules and obtain their feedback for improvement. These reports further help to identify the users who are exposed to the highest risks and provide advanced training sessions. The training program also helps in the identification of the users who were able to recognize security threats and report them to the security team.
Security awareness training plays a critical role in the success of an organization in the following ways:
- Reduces the chances of a data breach: Approximately, 9 out of 10 of data breaches happen due to human negligence, which can be prevented by administering appropriate training programs. Further, trained users are far more likely to identify phishing attempts and security threats than untrained users. The cost of administering an organization-wide training program is much less than the cost of an actual data security breach.
- Supports existing systems: Majority of organizations entrust their employees and partners to report data theft, as only one-third of breaches can be detected by technology. Even though there are state of the art technologies available on the market, they do not provide protection against all attacks. Security awareness training programs help to bridge such gaps to an extent by making the employees aware of the latest threats.
- Increases customer confidence: Businesses continuously strive to achieve customer trust and loyalty. Organizations must ensure that appropriate control measures have been implemented in order to protect customer credentials such as phone numbers, addresses, bank account numbers, etc. Backend staff should be trained to identify possible threats of data theft.
- Promotes a positive culture: The employees are the people who can make security awareness training programs a success by consistently following the training protocols and control procedures. Thus, they should be encouraged to participate in discussions and give inputs for conducting effective training. This inclusive approach encourages employees to work effectively to identify security threats.
- Legal compliances: All organizations must have security awareness training program in place. Nowadays, it is highly recommended for various industries to follow security standards set by the governing bodies. For example, industrial standards ISO/IEC 27001 and 27002 and NIST 800-53 recommend standard security awareness training programs. An organization-wide robust security awareness program can help organizations to directly remain compliant with various regulations.
In today’s digital world, the threat of data theft is always looming around the corner. Thus, in order to maintain a competitive position in the market and win stakeholders’ confidence, organizations should regularly conduct training programs either online or in person. However, before conducting the training program, the security team should conduct a rigorous market study, and take feedback from all stakeholders. Even though security assessment training lays down various measures to identify and report threats, its real benefits can be reaped only after the successful implementation by its users.
