Did you know, human error is the leading cause of data breaches today? With cyberattacks becoming increasingly sophisticated, it’s easy to see how your employees can fall foul to a phishing scam or two. Chances are you already train existing employees in online security and data handling best practices. But what about new employees?

Conducting cybersecurity awareness training during onboarding reduces the chances of your newest team members mistakably allowing a data breach and can strengthen your company’s “human firewall.” It means every new employee who joins the team will be well-equipped to spot potential threats from day one.

Let’s examine how to incorporate cybersecurity awareness training into your onboarding process.

Why do New Hires Need Cybersecurity Awareness Training?

The risk of a cybersecurity attack to your business has never been greater. In 2022 alone, there were a reported 480,000 cyber-attacks in the U.S.

When a new employee joins your company, you won’t always be aware of their level of cybersecurity awareness or whether they’ve had training from previous employers. Even if they have, you can’t guarantee how comprehensive it is or whether it aligns with your company’s policies.

Training new hires during onboarding ensures all employees are playing from the same rulebook. Rather than making assumptions about someone’s knowledge of best practices or security protocols, you cover all bases to protect their data, customer data and the company’s reputation.

Cyber-attacks can come from anywhere, at any time and take many forms. Let’s say a new hire has come from a different industry that handles different types of data or less sensitive information. Or their previous company didn’t supply them with personal devices. A successful onboarding should incorporate security measures to fill in these gaps around their awareness and cover risks specific to your company.

Some of the most common cyber risks and attacks to make new hires aware of include:

• Human error – opening suspicious emails or links and giving out credentials to fraudulent actors.
• Non-compliance – employees who don’t follow password and device usage policies.
• Too many privileges – team members have access to data and functions they don’t need.
• Phishing – fraudulent emails that trick employees into giving out sensitive information.
• Ransomware – programs that infiltrate and hold applications or data ransom for payment. It’s the leading cybersecurity risk in 2024.
• Social engineering – manipulation to gain system access from employees.

7 Cybersecurity Awareness Training Best Practices for New Hires

Here are our top tips for conducting security training with new employees.

1.    Develop a culture of security.

Cybersecurity awareness is a company-wide culture. New recruits should see that the rest of your team and departments practice what they preach. Make sure anyone involved in the hiring and onboarding processes also follow cybersecurity best practices.

During the recruitment and onboarding process, you’re likely to use various platforms and tools, including:

• Human resources (HR) platforms.
• Learning management systems (LMSs).
• Payroll and benefits administration solutions.
•  Enterprise architecture tools.
• Document management software.

Make sure each platform is secure in and of itself and clearly states what steps you take to protect the employee’s data. If they’re required to set up an account, use that as an opportunity to address the importance of password management. Or set up multi-factor authentication for an extra layer of security.

Remember that onboarding starts even before an employee has joined the company. By demonstrating your commitment to cybersecurity early on, you show that the company is serious about developing a culture of security to protect its employees and customers.

2.    Create a comprehensive training plan.

Meet with your information technology (IT) security specialist or outsource to experts and design comprehensive educational materials. These documents should outline all topics and protocols that your team should cover and who should conduct the training.

Start by including general best practices and basic security topics, such as how to identify phishing emails or password management. Then outline more detailed topics that are bespoke to your company, employees, and industry.

Consider covering these topics in your training plan:

• Sharing protocols: Particularly in a hybrid or remote environment, employees will always need to share information with one another. The way they do this will make or break your cybersecurity setup. Outline the correct procedure and approved platforms for sharing files internally and externally.
• Device management policies: Are remote employees given company devices? Or do you allow them to use their own? Whether you’re onboarding new employees working in their homes, in event venues in London, or in neighborhood coffee shops, it’s essential to create a comprehensive orientation on device management that includes topics such as using anti-virus software, secure servers, and any business tools for data protection. Personal devices used for work need to be password-protected and locked or turned off when not in use.
• Data encryption policies: You don’t want to risk data when it’s moving between a secure device and your secure systems. Utilize encryption services such as VeraCrypt and BitLocker to protect documents and HR data during intake. Add an encryption onboarding step to have employees install and use these services.
• Compliance regulations: Depending on your industry, your company may have strict compliance management , address these in your training plan, outlining what regulations are relevant and why, and guidelines for adhering to them.

3.    Make the training interactive.

Everyone learns differently, so it’s important to incorporate different learning styles into your training program. More importantly, it should be interactive so employees absorb the information better and engage with the content rather than feeling like they’re just part of a tick-box exercise.

Conduct quizzes and tests that gauge each employee’s baseline awareness and ability to spot potential threats. You can also conduct similar tests at the end of the program to see how much they learn along the way.

Incorporate gamification and simulations, too. Consider real-world scenarios relevant to their role to demonstrate the potential scenarios they’re likely to face. This also gives you a chance to see how they would respond and offer guidance for the future.

4.    Tailor content to their role.

There’s no point creating a generic training program that will be irrelevant to the majority of your employees. It has to address specific threats based on their roles and responsibilities.

For example, staff who handle sensitive customer data are likely to experience more data breach attempts due to the nature of that data. These employees should receive more robust training in data privacy and spotting relevant attacks such as Man-in-the-Middle or phishing scams.

Tailoring content in this way leads to faster orientation and enhances workplace optimization. New employees should feel well-equipped to be productive and produce high-quality work from day one without constantly worrying about what threats might be lurking behind every email.

5.    Outline reporting protocols.

Once employees are aware of the types of risks they could come across, they need to understand next steps. Outline the process they should take if they’ve identified a threat as well as what to do if they become a victim of a cyber-attack.

Avoid blame culture and instead show that management values honesty and transparency. Make sure new employees understand the importance of communicating with the relevant people quickly so the team can take immediate action to limit the damage.

Encourage them to be proactive, too. They should feel confident in reporting potential weaknesses in your systems or the emergence of new types of attacks. Bringing this to your awareness means management can look into the issues, identify genuine risks, and incorporate those into future cybersecurity awareness training plans for the next round of onboarding.

6.    Share relevant material.

After completing cybersecurity awareness training during the onboarding stage, share relevant documents and resources with your new hires. Depending on how much content you covered, it may be a lot for employees to absorb on top of their new responsibilities.

Share relevant material that they can access and reference when they need to. You can keep these in a folder on your server or as part of a knowledge hub on your internal platform. If you’re migrating to the cloud, you can also consider storing this on a third-party provider that remote employees can securely access from anywhere.

As part of this material, consider including:

• A checklist for employees to review if they suspect suspicious activity.
• Guidelines for how to securely set up new devices.
• Approved third-party providers such as VPN networks or file-sharing platforms.
• Steps for reporting attempts or successful attacks.
• Relevant data compliance regulations, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), with links.
• Schedules for regularly updating passwords, browsers, software, apps, and other systems.

7.    Follow up.

Even after you’ve successfully onboarded a new employee and they’ve passed their probation, you need to be sure they’re putting what they learned into practice.

Continue to communicate with new employees and refresh their skills. You could even get them to complete quizzes after a set period of time. Or why not enroll them onto a gaming app that assesses their skills in a more fun and engaging way? This puts a competitive spin on employees’ cybersecurity awareness and ensures it remains part of your company culture.

Conduct regular training with all employees, making sure to address new threats you’ve identified and any weak areas, such as threats that you feel employees regularly struggle to identify or fall victim to.

Finally, ask new hires what they thought of the training. If there are any areas that they feel they didn’t understand, offer additional training focused on that topic.

Take their feedback into account for future onboarding processes so you can continue to provide robust training for all new employees..

Secure Onboarding and Protect Your Business

Onboarding is an opportunity to set you and a new hire up for a successful partnership. Cyber risks threaten the business as soon as employees cross the start line. Build a secure onboarding process so that team members swim safely through the paperwork, training, and admin.

Getting through each step without a hitch helps everyone get to work sooner. Not only that, but it can also build a culture of cybersecurity from day one, mitigating the daily virtual threats to your business.