How important is security awareness training?

90% of data breaches are attributed to human error, with phishing techniques being responsible for nearly half of these breaches. Which highlights just how crucial it is to implement security awareness training within your organisation.

Employees often serve as the initial line of defence against cyber attacks. Moreover, due to their involvement with sensitive data, even a minor accidental breach of GDPR could have serious implications for the business, not only financial repercussions but also damaging its reputation.

By providing the right training and knowledge, organisations can effectively prevent human errors that often lead to significant data breaches. Additionally, such training can enhance employees’ understanding of threat intelligence and potential attacks, helping to raise their awareness.

What are the benefits of security awareness training?

• Mitigate data breaches and phishing attacks – Employees will be able to confidently know how to spot a phishing attack and take extra care to avoid inadvertently breaching sensitive or confidential data.
• Reinforces a better cybersecurity culture – Establishing strong security processes and foundations will enable all staff, including newly on-boarded employees, to understand their responsibilities in safeguarding the business.
• Boosts customer loyalty – Customers are becoming increasingly more aware of cyber threats and are conscious about who they share their information with online. Security awareness training can help bolster an organisation’s cybersecurity defences, which ultimately builds customer trust and increases recommendations.
• Helps improve maintenance on security solutions – To improve cyber defences, staff familiarity with security tools is vital. Investing in technological defences is insufficient without feedback and performance reviews. Regular updates on software, configuring firewalls and addressing security issues promptly builds a strong security solution.

How to introduce your security awareness training

Security awareness training should be designed to equip employees against the latest cybersecurity threats, enabling them to feel confident to undertake appropriate defensive measures.

New employees are highly susceptible to threats as they are uninformed of security procedures and risks, therefore it is critical for organisations to have solid security training in place to train them in the greatest cybersecurity risks and responsible data-handling practices.

Here are our four best practices that can assist you in developing an effective security awareness training plan:

• Schedule training sessions multiple times a year – It is good practice to divide your training into short sessions based on different modules. These sessions can be followed with tasks or quizzes to help evaluate the employees’ knowledge retention and ability to apply what they have learned.
• Focus on the most significant security risks first – Before you put together your security awareness training, you must conduct a vulnerability assessment first to identify and assign priority levels to risks in terms of their scope. Once this has been established, your training will align better with your organisation’s overall goals, policies and procedures.
• Tailor your sessions to your employees – Good training should resonate with your staff. Take a look at how your employees work and what key obstacles they may face in their roles to help aid better understanding.
• Provide support after your sessions – The learning should continue after your training sessions to help employees retain and put their knowledge into practice. Literature such as handy guides or posters around the office can help with this.

No matter how big or small the organisation, every employee should have a clear understanding of how to keep the business safe online and the risks to look out for. Here at C2 Risk, we make it easy for you to visualise and manage your digital risk all in one place. Speak to us today to find out how we can protect your business against the ever-evolving landscape of third party and vendor risks.

To keep your business protected against risk throughout your entire supply chain, why not check out our latest blog on creating an effective vendor risk management programme in 5 simple steps.

About C2

C2 is a UK risk management scaleup on a mission to help businesses survive and thrive in the digital economy. C2 helps organisations manage security and compliance in a way that’s unique to their business and that does more than simply ticking off digital checkboxes. C2’s industry-leading platform supports the public and private sectors in managing their threat landscape and improving vendor controls, project, privacy, and ESG risks.