Cybersecurity is a team effort, and one of the most effective things you can do for your organization’s safety is to promote cyber awareness among everyone, not just security teams.
When everyone in your company understands the risks, what’s at stake, and what they can personally do to improve security, everyone benefits. You’ll build a safer, more cohesive company and give your team members valuable skills that will impact the rest of their lives.
Increasing cyber awareness and security consciousness requires the right approach. In this article, we’ll take a look at why this task is so important and show you some of the steps you can take to build cyber awareness training in your organization.
The Importance of Cyber AwarenessÂ
Cybersecurity is no longer just something for highly-qualified experts to worry about. It affects everyone in your organization, in their private lives as well as at work.
If you or your fellow employees are unaware of the risks and best practices associated with cybersecurity, you’re putting the entire organization in danger. Data breaches are becoming more common and more sophisticated, and criminals are increasingly using social engineering tactics like spear phishing to target individual employees.
To make matters worse, many businesses are not taking this issue anywhere near seriously enough. A Gartner report found that even though many companies have cyber awareness training in place, employees tend to frequently ignore even basic best practices.
Even a simple cyber awareness training procedure can be a huge help and significantly reduce your risk in many different areas. Let’s find out how to make that happen.
5 Key Steps to Increase Your Staff’s Cyber Awareness & Security Consciousness
Conduct Regular Trainings
You don’t have to host three-hour seminars every week, but regular cybersecurity training sessions can go a long way in ensuring your team members have the necessary skills and knowledge to keep themselves and your assets safe.
Consider making cyber awareness training a mandatory part of every employee’s onboarding experience, and provide additional training sessions for employees who need to access sensitive information or are exposed to higher risk. You should also run update sessions regularly to inform your teams about relevant trends, new risks, and new tools being used.
Encourage Communication & Questions
Cybersecurity can be complicated, and it’s important to remember that not everyone has specialist knowledge. Many of your team members will find cyber awareness challenging and will have numerous questions at different points.
It’s essential to give your employees a space to ask questions and seek clarity when they’re confused about something. If team members don’t feel comfortable doing this or don’t know which channels to use, they could end up in risky situations. Set up special Slack channels or an email address to field cybersecurity-related questions, and share a document with common issues and solutions.
Use Simulations
Simulating cyberattacks, like sending mock phishing emails, can be a great way to engage your team and show them what a real attack looks like and how they should respond. On top of showing employees what to expect, these trial runs can also shed light on areas where team members might lack training or knowledge, allowing your security experts to give these points some extra attention.
Lead By Example
Cyber awareness should start from the top down. In other words, your company leaders should make an effort to be more informed than others and to embody all the right best practices when it comes to security.Â
This is a key part of building a more security-conscious culture in your organization, where being aware of the risks and how to mitigate them is not just an annoying set of rules but a fundamental mindset, taken seriously by everyone.
Gamify Cyber Awareness
Everything’s more fun when it’s a game. To make your cyber awareness lessons stick and to keep your team members more engaged, it’s a great idea to make the process more competitive. Give out prizes to those who follow the best practices and who make useful suggestions on how to improve security and minimize risk. This incentivizes following the right steps and helps make cyber awareness something your team members get excited about instead of dreading.
DYOPATH’s ApproachÂ
At DYOPATH, our suite of managed security services is designed to help you build a safer and more resilient organization, giving you peace of mind even in a turbulent cybersecurity landscape.
We’ll also work closely with you to help you build cyber awareness and security consciousness into every layer of your organization, training your teams and giving them the skills needed to manage risks and stay safe.
If you want to learn more about how we can help you build a more secure, aware, and security-literate company, get in touch with DYOPATH.
