Cybersecurity awareness is an important initiative aimed at promoting digital security and privacy. With a significant portion of our professional lives dependent on digital technology, maintaining resilience against ransomware, viruses and phishing campaigns has never been more crucial for businesses, especially as attacks grow increasingly sophisticated. Many business leaders may believe that advanced software or hardware solutions alone are effective enough to boost a company’s cyber resiliency. While these components are certainly critical for protecting against numerous threats, business leaders often overlook the value of proper employee training.

Research finds that over one-quarter of organizations lack any cybersecurity awareness training. In addition, only 8% of organizations offer ongoing training for evolving security practices. As a result, according to the study, “Psychology of Human Error,” by researchers at Stanford University and a top cybersecurity organization, human error is responsible for 88% of security breaches.

By implementing a comprehensive training program, you can continuously keep company people aware of cybersecurity best practices, making significant improvements to your company’s cyber resiliency. In this article, we’ll review how to deliver an effective cybersecurity awareness training program to enhance your organizations cyber resilience.

How Employee Errors Lead to Data Breaches

Most non-IT and non-technical employees may not consistently keep cybersecurity best practices top of mind, leading them to occasionally overlook or disregard essential security protocols. Many employees may not realize that their daily habits can put their organization at risk. Without a formal training program, organizations leave employees unaware of essential cybersecurity practices. Leaders often assume these practices are common knowledge, but it’s a mistake to believe everyone automatically knows how to work securely.

Employees can mistakenly cause a cybersecurity breach by failing to recognize social engineering attacks, such as phishing or spam campaigns. Social engineering typically involves cybercriminals posing as legitimate people or companies to trick users into clicking on innocent-seeming malicious links or giving away sensitive information. This often can allow criminals to gain access to company accounts or systems with ease.

Beyond social engineering, practices like poor password management (using simple passwords or leaving them in plain sight), using unsecured public networks, failing to update software and leaving workstations unlocked can also leave companies exposed to outside threats. These examples show that technical infrastructure can’t always prevent threat actors from achieving their goals, underscoring the urgent demand for cyber awareness training: A comprehensive security awareness training program can help mitigate these behaviors.

Boosting Resilience with Security Awareness Training

Software solutions, automation, managed services and many other advanced components are still critical for staying protected against cyber-attacks. However, business leaders should view employees as the first line of defense and integrate ongoing security awareness training to complete their cybersecurity strategy.

Business leaders should keep the following tips in mind when building a security awareness training program:

• Make it interactive: Telling employees to create stronger passwords and report suspicious activity isn’t always an effective way to drive the point home. With simulations of phishing attacks, security breaches or suspicious activity, employees can better experience situations firsthand, so they can learn from their mistakes and refine their skills in a controlled setting.

• Measure results: Keep a log of how employees perform to identify areas that require further training, and help leaders understand how the training impacts the company’s security posture.

• Personalized modules: Some employees may be skilled in particular areas but require additional help in others. Training programs should be personalized according to each person’s strengths and weaknesses, using the metrics of previous sessions to ensure they’re continuously developing in key areas.

• Build a security culture: Security awareness should be ingrained into a company’s culture, not just mentioned as a talking point once or twice a year. It needs to be a central part of operations company-wide, with regular check-ins and updates on new threats. Business leaders should invest in a next-gen cybersecurity awareness training solution that automates the training process and helps ensure employees are following their training and receiving the learnings they each need.

Business leaders should recognize the critical role employees play in defending against cyber threats. With comprehensive security awareness training, employees can feel empowered and equipped to protect their organization from cyberattacks — ultimately reducing the risk of becoming the next target of a security breach.