The Back Story
Before the working-from-home era, most of cyber security activities were restricted within the perimeter of the office environment. Everyone was connected to the protected corporate network and all incoming and outgoing traffic was strictly monitored. Cyber security training was mostly classroom based; employees sat within the board room and spent 2-5 hours learning about best cyber security practices.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and businesses had to make adjustments to the way they operate in order to continue. Everyone is now working from anywhere and everywhere, connected to different networks, and using personal devices for work-related purposes. This new architecture gave a lot of cyber security practitioners sleepless nights, mostly because they now had to deal with a broader threat surface born from company personnel. One might have thought the use of VPN, SASE, or Zero-Trust architecture were the answers to all the challenges, but another angle backed by statistics showed that another threat was on the rise – social engineering.
PCMag reported a spike in phishing attacked by a spectacular 350% during the pandemic, a trend that has not shown any signs of slowing down, as criminals have finally figured the attack vector that works best, and that is using the human element of trust and exploiting lack of awareness. The realisation of knowing the most likely route to be taken by cyber criminals looking to cause a data breach makes it easier to put in place safeguards that may prove to be more effective.
Therefore, it is now necessary to have an effective cyber security training programme in place that allows organisations to measure the level of risk, and track progress which will help with more informed decisions. Awareness training is one of the biggest issues that auditors investigate and prove to compliance, an organisation needs to have a robust and measurable programme in place, one that achieves the ultimate goal of creating a robust human firewall.
How to Optimise Your Training Programme
Ensuring you’re getting the most out of your awareness training only requires a few steps – this will maximise your business’s training strategy and help provide a programme that is adding value to your first line of defence.
Regular Training Sessions
Many training options only require you to complete modules once per year – however, this can lead to your employees forgetting the guidance and quickly falling back into bad habits. To keep your team engaged, and to ensure that they are getting the most out of the awareness training, implementing regular refresher training throughout the year will keep your staff vigilant and up to date with the latest cyber security guidance.
Scenario-Based Training
Educating your team on the latest guidance and best practises is certainly a good first step with any training programme, however, if your training ends there then your employees and organisation may be falling short. Scenario-based exercises and examples are a great way to put the theory into reality and help set the scene with common cyber security risks and guidance. Including training with narrative structures will not only help make the content more engaging, but this will allow your employees to easily understand and remember the guidance.
Put the Training to the Test
Implementing e-Learning modules throughout your organisation is an easy way to ensure your employees are up to speed and informed on a particular topic or policy – however, without putting that training to the test, how do you know whether it has worked? When it comes to cyber security awareness training, we recommend including phishing simulations as part of your training programme – this allows you to understand where vulnerabilities lie within your organisation, gauge an understanding of your current risk level, and ensure that your team remain vigilant and resilient to potential attacks.
Identify Your Vulnerabilities
Optimising your training programme isn’t just about what content you are providing, but how are you providing it? It is imperative to ensure that your training is able to be tracked and analysed on a platform that permits you to run reports throughout your organisation – this will allow you to identify where your vulnerabilities lie, what areas need more attention than others, and how your employees are responding to the provided training.
Killing Two Birds with One Stone? More Like Eight Birds!
With our Mitigate user hub, your organisation has access to a strong suite that makes training and compliance a breeze for any organisation wanting to implement or enhance their staff development programme. Usually when businesses do carry out training with their employees, it’s generally too long and overly technical, meaning staff struggle to retain information. Mitilearn has been built to change this!
Our forward-thinking training platform is comprised of only five simple steps. As employees work their way through the training modules, they pass assessments, and sign off on what they have learnt – upon completion, employees will have an in-depth understanding of prevalent cyber threats and what they can do to mitigate the risk. With the Mitigate user hub, you can also drip-feed mock cyber threats with Mitiphish, to test awareness and keep employees vigilant in house.
With our clients testifying how easy and simple it is to use our products, without compromising capabilities and quality of results, what are you waiting for? Speak to a member of the Mitigate Cyber team today!
