Security awareness training is seen by many as something “nice to have,” while several SF Bay Area business owners have begun implementing our on-site training as a necessity, looking to protect their network and backups from encryption.
Your decision to adopt user-based education has been passed over year after year due to budget constraints or a lack of in-house experts to demystifying technology. Small to medium-sized businesses have suffered from these types of constraints for years when compared to larger, resource-heavy organizations.
Though it’s clear end-user education doesn’t have to be a need for many business owners, as recently as August 2017, a Better Business Bureau study uncovered almost half of SMBs with 50 employees and under, regard security awareness training among their top 3 most proactive IT expenditures, alongside, firewalls and endpoint protection.
This increase comes as no surprise, as the cybersecurity landscape has become more dynamic than ever. The average small to medium-sized business faces annual losses of over $80,000 when everything is said and done. Your staff is the front line to your business, and even the most advanced security stacks have limitations. If you’re not educating end-users by now, you’re putting your organization in harm’s way.
Here are a few tips and trips for SMBs looking to get started with end-user training or security awareness training:
Gather Company Buy-In
As with any new programs, starting at the ground level will ensure success. Start with building a culture of security. Yes, it might require multi-factor authentication or additional hoops to jump through. Begin generating the buy-in from the surrounding management teams, sending out an email explaining the value of security awareness, phishing details, and the latest in security trends, and reports for your information technology(IT) team.
Starts with Phishing
In the current technology landscape, security awareness should begin with the MOST COMMON attack vector: email phishing campaigns. With thousands of interactive tools and designs built to mislead and steal your credentials, there is no shortage of examples and videos showing the intricate workings. Begin with the basics and go through the varying amounts of phishing threats. Your staff should be able to identify and mitigate any phishing attempts after your training concludes.
Share results with End Users
Use this feedback to inspire smarter habits among staff, identifying key objectives for security awareness training to engage in at a later point. Who knows, maybe you will uncover security gaps left behind by a past managed IT provider. Raise the level of cyber awareness throughout your organization, sharing the latest encounters internally with your staff. Chances are these criminals are working more than one of you at work, and this can help employees understand the impact of poor online habits and motivate them to practice better behaviors.
Continuous Training: Set up your phishing and training program
Once your users are engaged and understand the value, the next step is setting up a training program for new employees. There is no one-size-fits-all program, but we recommend running at least one training course per year. Depending on the needs of each organization, presentations can be tailored to highlight industry-specific security.
As the business scales, you will want to scale the frequency and adjust intervals throughout the year. Our Security Awareness Training includes real-world phishing scenarios that have been defanged from the wild.
When you start seeing the impact that proven security awareness training has on your employees, you’ll wonder how your business ever managed without it. Contact us to schedule your no-cost, no-obligation security awareness training for your organization.
