Why Security Awareness Training Is Important
Security awareness training helps mitigate human cyber risk. The training identifies all the potential mistakes employees can make online or in their physical environment that can lead to security breaches and cyberattacks.
Why is security awareness training important for businesses? As Bay Area’s cybersecurity experts, we have seen firsthand all the advantages of quality security awareness training, and we’ll share the details in this article.
The Benefits Of Security Awareness Training Programs
Some of the top reasons why security awareness training is important in corporate environments include the following:
Prevent data breaches and phishing attacks
One of the biggest benefits of security awareness training for businesses stems from helping to reduce the risk of data breaches and phishing attacks.
Many companies that hold regular security awareness training report fewer security incidents and cyberattacks than those that don’t.
Cyber attackers use phishing schemes to mine sensitive data that can help them achieve their nefarious goals.
One of the major parts of a cyber security awareness training program includes educating employees on email security, password security, and how to recognize phishing attempts before it is too late.
The program will also teach employees how to take advantage of any security measures already in place at the establishment to counter potential cyber threats.
Program coordinators often use phishing simulations and phantom social engineering attacks to educate the security awareness program participants on how cyber attacks occur and to ensure they adopt the lessons and behavioral changes that an effective awareness training program will encourage.
Build a positive security culture
Security experts encourage businesses to cultivate a company-wide culture of security awareness for sustained results. Security awareness training helps companies reach this critical awareness level by making positive security practices second nature for employees.
The employees in a brand with a strong culture of security act as the first line of defense against future and current cyber threats.
Therefore, every business can benefit from a well-rounded security awareness program with training content that keeps reminding employees about security threats and their roles in preventing possible cyber attacks.
Prevent reputational damage
More consumers now understand the importance of data privacy. With every reported large-scale data breach for any business, the brand reputation suffers.
Many consumers will turn away from brands with news of data breaches. Even when such brands revamp their security infrastructure for better defense against cyber threats, it will take time to convince people to believe that the business can protect their privacy.
So, why is security awareness training important for businesses? To prevent churn and undoing all attempts at growing the bottom line. Effective security awareness training can keep a brand out of the news by helping them stay one step ahead of security threats.
Improve defenses against cyber threats
Many businesses have security systems designed to protect against potential threats. However, those systems only prove as useful as the people in charge of them.
For example, your firewall becomes pointless if someone forgets to turn it on. Early security warnings will not achieve the intended benefit if someone doesn’t acknowledge and act on them.
Eliminating human error is vital in the quest to prevent a cyber attack or eliminate social engineering threats. When key personnel understands the importance of security awareness, the security department’s job becomes easier.
Thus, a cybersecurity awareness training program can help make defense systems more effective overall in the face of security risks.
Adherence to compliance requirements
More regulators now mandate companies to provide security awareness training for employees. Thus, some businesses may lose their regulatory cover without regular training.
However, you need to keep in mind that completing security awareness training just for compliance purposes will not be enough to effectively protect your business from potential threats.
Prevent tailgating with security awareness training
Cybercriminals can gain unauthorized access to company systems beyond just phishing emails. Some elaborate attacks require someone to gain access to a business space—an attack method known as tailgating.
Better physical security setups can help prevent most tailgating attempts. For example, having different access levels for employees can make it harder for rogue elements to gain unauthorized access to sensitive parts of your building. However, it may not always yield the right results.
Security awareness training will teach employees that have access to secure premises how to spot and report cyber criminals in the process of tailgating attacks when security protocols don’t work.
Cyber Security Awareness Training Costs
The cost of hosting a cyber security awareness program depends on the size of the business and the types of threats it may likely face.
Phishing tests and other such simulations represent only just a small fraction of the overall program. Most awareness training programs feature plenty of video tutorials, gamified lessons, and more. All of these can add to the total cost of the training.
Business leaders have to work with cyber awareness training specialists to design custom programs for their brands.
However, regardless of the cost of cybersecurity training, most businesses report significant returns on their investment after training employees.
A decreased number of security incidents can reduce the workload on the information security team and also lower the likelihood of the brand is in the news for the wrong reasons.
Design A Security Awareness Training Program For Your Business
Would you like to avoid data breach consequences for your business? Do you want a strong security culture across your business? It’s time to put together a custom information security awareness training program.
Our team has extensive experience providing company-wide proper training on spotting phishing emails, safe password practices, deployment of two-factor authentication, and more.
We can schedule periodic simulated phishing attempts to ensure the training is working and highlight staff members that can benefit from further training.
Our risk management team can also evaluate your existing threat management and recovery systems to make sure they can withstand ransomware attacks and other cyber threats.
Call Renascence IT Consulting today at (510) 552-6896 to schedule a consultation or for further discussions on the topic “Why is security awareness training important?”
