The Impact & Importance of Security Awareness Training
Recently, we shared some tips for employee security awareness and training. But you may be wondering why security awareness training is necessary for your business. You have IT professionals or outsourced support teams you can contact when you need them. And their products and services are made to protect your digital assets.
It’s true that any high-quality cybersecurity solutions provider should have the best tools and protocols in place to ensure the integrity of your data and online business operations. But it’s also true that most data and security breaches are a result of employee actions, both criminal actions and errors or mistakes caused by lack of education.
Security awareness training is part of a strategy that prepares network end-users by teaching them best practices, ways to recognize cybersecurity red flags, and other things to consider when they are interacting with your files and digital pathways.
There are many great reasons to educate your team, so let’s talk about some of them. It’s hard to overstate the impact and importance of security awareness training.
The Importance of Security Awareness Training
The goal of security awareness training is to help your employees and other users recognize they play an integral role in your cybersecurity programs. When employees are well-informed and engaged, they will use their agency to help decrease cyber attacks and breaches caused by human error.
Human error, according to most sources, is involved in about 90% of security system breaches. Many of these human errors are caused by distractions or a lack of education about how to determine the legitimacy of emails and other online correspondence.
Your employees are juggling a lot as it is. They are working through their normal job responsibilities, either in-house or remotely, and working with your management teams to overcome the post-COVID challenges that crop up, including supply chain issues. And since the pandemic started, cybercrime has been on the rise.
When done correctly, security awareness training can change your employees’ behaviors and digital habits in a way that doesn’t greatly affect their workflow, but it does greatly reduce your chances of a breach. There will never be a 0% chance of a breach. But when you don’t address the human-based chinks in your digital armor, you’ll be forced to make time and address the data loss and malware that will interrupt your business operations.
The Impact of Security Awareness Training
Before you decide to allocate resources, you may be wondering how much of a difference implementing the recommended strategies will make for your business. We’ll start off strong: security awareness training has been found to cut cyber risks to your organization up to 70%.
Security awareness training is just like any other training. The goal is to educate your employees on how to perform their duties correctly and efficiently. The prevalence of computers across industries doesn’t necessarily mean that all your employees will be well-versed in the dos and don’ts of cybersecurity best practices. We also know training reduces mistakes and helps mitigate other communication and workflow issues.
Security awareness training is a lot like cybersecurity. It’s not a one-time operation, it requires regular efforts to continue to be effective at mitigating cyber risk.
Phishing is a top threat for businesses all over the globe right now, and studies show that phishing resistance training wears off after about 4 months. The vigilance it takes to keep your business operations free of cyber risk-generating behaviors is constant.
But we don’t want to discourage you. Just like your employees’ good habits can be contagious throughout a department or team, so can security awareness training initiatives.
When done right, security awareness training has over 500% ROI in many instances, according to Security Boulevard.
It’s also a great way to mitigate cyber risk to your business that stems from neglect. The “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” mentality isn’t one that should be applied to your business continuity efforts. Neglect can leave just as many, if not more, vulnerabilities than staff mistakes and digital errors.
Security Awareness Is Just One Piece of a Robust Cybersecurity Program
Unfortunately, there is a new or emerging cyber risk hitting networks like yours every day. And a robust cybersecurity response is the best way to ensure your data and digital assets are covered from all sides.
That’s what Verve IT is built to do – work with you and your needs to create a top-tier protection package for the modern workspace.
Check out our modern workspace solutions today. We offer everything from flat-rate IT support services to backups and hardware sales. Verve IT provides you with everything you need to stay up and running. Reach out to us with questions and concerns – we’re here to help!