Cybersecurity Awareness
Training
Security awareness training for employees has come into its own of late. It’s a symptom of success when Gartner launches a brand new Magic Quadrant (MQ) category, and that has happened to this area of IT in the last couple of years. Another success indicator is that the biggest company in the field and the leader in the Gartner MQ – KnowBe4 – achieved Unicorn status (worth a billion dollars) and went public. As a result, the field of security training is a hotbed of startups and competitors keen to muscle in on the action.
The current focus of most security awareness training initiatives is on phishing – and with good reason. Phishing is responsible for the bulk of breaches. Users get hoodwinked into clicking on a malicious attachment or URL and this inadvertently lets the bad guys in. The never-ending threat posed by careless end users has also raised the profile of other solutions like secure email gateways.
Cybercriminals have gotten very clever about how they fool employees – posing as emails from trusted vendors, government agencies, or even from email addresses within the company, a deceptive practice known as spoofing. They fashion subject lines designed to gain attention and be opened. It takes discipline to think before clicking on an urgent link from your CEO. Thus the goal of training is to educate users so they are far less likely to fall prey to the various ploys from the hacking fraternity.
What is Security Awareness Training?
Security awareness training is a proven educational approach for improving risky employee IT behaviors that can lead to security compromises. Through the efficient delivery of relevant information and knowledge verification on subjects including information security, social engineering, malware, and industry-specific compliance topics, security awareness training increases employee resilience to cyber attacks at home, on the move, and at the office.
By participating in security awareness training, employees learn to avoid phishing and other types of social engineering cyberattacks, spot potential malware behaviors, report possible security threats, follow company IT policies and best practices, and adhere to any applicable data privacy and compliance regulations (GDPR, PCI DSS, HIPAA, etc.)
Cybersecurity Awareness Training Overview
- Top cybersecurity training tools for employees
- Cybersecurity training tools profiles in-depth
- Key security training product features
- Vendor selection tips
- Phishing and ransomware top employee security concerns
- Employee security awareness tactics that work
- Elements of a Successful Employee Security Training Program
Types of Training
Every organization will have a style of training that’s more compatible with its culture. There are many options, including:
Classroom training: This allows instructors to see whether learners are engaged throughout the process and adjust accordingly. It also allows participants to ask questions in real time.
Online training: This scales much better than in-person training, and it will likely be less disruptive to employee productivity since learners can work through the content from any location at their own convenience. This can also allow learners to work through the material at their own pace.
Visual aids: Posters in the break room cannot be a lone source of security awareness training, but when done effectively, they can serve as helpful reminders.
Phishing campaigns: Nothing captures an learner’s attention quite like the realization that they’ve fallen for a phish. Of course, learners who fail the phishing test should be automatically enrolled in further training.
Top Cybersecurity Training Tools for Employees
Ninjio
Ninjio uses short, animated videos designed to keep trainees’ attention while demonstrating the necessity of cybersecurity. Each video is between three and four minutes long, and they release new ones each month. Based on real companies that have had a security breach, the training offers scenarios employees might encounter and how to address them. And there’s even a gamified leaderboard to encourage engagement and keep employees involved.
ESET
ESET cybersecurity training provides on-demand training that allows employees to follow along at their own pace and repeat courses when they need a refresher. Rather than covering all of the issues surrounding cybersecurity, the courses focus on the ones employees are most likely to face, like phishing, credential theft, and social engineering. There’s a free option that covers the basics and best practices for remote employees, but if you want gamification, email reminders, and a phishing simulator, you’ll need to upgrade.
Cofense
Cofense PhishMe takes a broader view than staff education. As well as training, it catches the phishing emails that bypass email gateways. It rapidly detects, analyzes, and automatically quarantines phishing attacks. In addition, the company offers PhishMe Playbooks that are 12-month programs with phishing simulation scenarios, landing pages, attachments, and educational content.
CybSafe
CybSafe offers simulated phishing, training, and the ability to establish risk perception levels. By assessing someone’s basic knowledge of security with a few questions, their perception of different risks, and how confident they are, CybSafe can tailor itself to each person with personalized awareness training, security advice, and threat updates
Elevate Security
The Elevate Security Platform uses benchmarks, tailored security controls, and personalized feedback to focus attention on risky employees. Once again, it is technology backed by user education rather than purely being user security awareness training.
Mimecast
Mimecast Awareness Training uses humor to engage employees and change behavior via awareness training videos. It uses recurring characters and themes to communicate information with content written and produced by TV and film industry professionals in an effort to maintain employee attention and reinforce training.
Proofpoint
Proofpoint acquired its security training technology in 2019 from Wombat. Proofpoint Security Awareness Training helps you deliver the right training to the right people at the right time, with education tailored to individual needs. The company also offers email security, threat protection, and cloud security tools.
Living Security
Living Security sees security awareness training as a starting point where human risk management is the next evolution in decreasing cyber threats in an organization. It focuses on risk minimization rather than KPIs based on a phishing report. As such, the company provides personalized campaigns of content based on the threat indicators of the customers. This includes live-action experiential learning rather than video training of long modules (10 to 30 minutes). Living Security uses gamification to increase employee engagement.
Infosec IQ
Infosec IQ offers pre-built cybersecurity training programs or allows companies to build their own from existing modules. There is a large content library complete with both industry and role-specific training modules to prevent your employees from learning about topics that don’t impact them. The phishing simulator provides instant feedback when a user takes unsafe actions, so they can safely learn from their mistakes. There are over 1,000 pre-built simulations to choose from, but you can also build your own.
Why CyberCure for IT Security Awareness Program?
Through phishing simulations based on real-world attacks and training that includes key security and compliance subjects, CyberCure makes it simple to build an ongoing training programme that greatly minimizes the risk of security breaches.
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