You Are The Weakest Link
Security Awareness Training Educates and Empowers Your Employees
No one can guarantee 100%, full-proof cyber protection. Today’s hackers are clever and have devised very sophisticated malware that can leave victims completely devastated in the blink of an eye. Recent reporting and studies show that 90% of all data breaches were caused by human error. What this means is that ultimately, security is a people problem; the average, every day employee is the weakest link in the organizational change.
Any one of us can be a key target for cybercrime and attacks are continuing to increase in size, sophistication and cost. This is why Security Awareness Training is so important; but what exactly is it?
One of the newest buzz word filled phrases that is getting tossed around corporate environments, and executive meetings is Security Awareness Training. Described in broad terms, is the process of providing formal cybersecurity education to your employees about a variety of information security threats to ensure they can follow organizational practices and policies in order to better leverage and be an active part in the overall security of the organization.
Having employees that are cybersecurity conscious doesn’t only benefit your employees at the workplace, they will take what they have learned home with them and apply it to their daily lives as well.
Security Awareness Training can protect assets and prevent downtime
Security Awareness Training helps prevent breaches and attacks
Data breaches can be devastating for organizations small and large, with recent breaches costing the victimized organizations into the billions of dollars. This is why data breaches should be the first thing that comes to mind whenever you’re thinking about Security Awareness Training. In comparison to the potential cost of a breach, Security Awareness Training is inexpensive and should not be given a second thought on whether or not its ROI is viable.
Increase Security Posture of the Company
Security Awareness Training programs try to put emphasis on the value of a secure culture and will measure its score right from the beginning. This is then stored as the baseline before the awareness training is started and assessed over time as the company matures in creating a more secure culture.
Security professionals will then continuously monitor the parameters of your security culture through advanced awareness training platforms and develop and nurture a culture of security within the organization.
Compliance and Regulatory Requirements
Oftentimes, organizations must comply with certain industry regulations or frameworks such as CMMC, ALTA Best Practices, PCI , HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, NIST, or ISO and can be expected to deliver security awareness training to their employees once or perhaps twice a year. Even though Security Awareness Training may not be needed by small and medium enterprises/organizations for compliance reasons, they can also benefit from training their employees to avoid phishing attacks, account takeovers, or other well-known means that cybercriminals use.
Allows You To Build Out More Robust Defenses
Investing in Security Awareness Training allows you to build more robust defenses against costly breaches. These higher end technological defenses require input from people, and setting your employees on a path towards being more security aware is the only way to go.
From here, they will know when to turn your firewalls on, understand and acknowledge security warnings, update software and apply patches on time thus creating more security conscious, robust defenses.
Another angle that makes this a critical necessity is the fact that today’s hackers don’t approach their attacks through technological means but rather use people through social engineering or phishing, which is often considered an easy way into a protected network.
Investing in Security Awareness Training can also help you gain more customers. If you have not included cybersecurity precautions into your RFP process, you are not going to be considered by IT-decision makers or high-profile contracts. Customers will feel more confident if they are going to be dealing with people who are well informed and trained in cybersecurity standards and practices.
Security Awareness Training Makes Us More Socially Responsible
Cyber attack campaigns like those that used the WannaCry and NotPetya malware are clear examples to go by because these pieces of malware spread and very shocking speeds. Once a network is infected, malware can spread within seconds.
Organizations with little to no security awareness training can put the rest of the organizations that are connected to them at risk of possible infection, provided that your customers, suppliers, or others are connected to your network. Investing in Security Awareness Training benefits not only you, but everyone else you’re connected to.
** Please note that Security Awareness Training is not a one off operation, it is an ongoing effort. As the threat landscape and hackers TTP’s continues to change and evolve, as does the need to properly train and educate your employees continuously.
Here at SME Inc, we provide both Security Awareness Training, as well as Phishing simulations, to find out more about these services or any other IT/security related questions, please give us a call at 703-378-4110 or email info@smeinc.net