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Why Security Awareness Training Most Important for Employees?

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An awesome training session is the bedrock of engaged employees. Engagement means they are aware of and follow the directives. Without a proper training session, employees could be making serious mistakes, especially in the realm of security. A security awareness training allows the organization to influence the behavior, mitigate the risks and ensure compliance.

Infographic credit : EveryCloud

The regulations and protocols for security awareness training have become more complex than ever. Organizations can’t rest on their laurels, maintaining legacy systems or recycling the old-fashioned security practices. This is why they should carry out regular security awareness training sessions for the employees.

Why Security Awareness Training Matters?

“Ignorance is a bliss”. Sadly, it is far from the truth when it comes to security. A staff of inept employees could be liable to network attacks. Without leaving a room for vulnerabilities, employees must be educated to be aware of scamming, hacking, ransomware attacks, account takeovers and other security threats.

Hackers and other cybercriminals are always in search for opportunities to prey on any vulnerability that employees might be having. Therefore, most of the network security programs train employees on how to recognize and deter the incoming threats that might be dangerous for both organization and employees.

Something as little as a phishing email can poses the ability to cause a network failure. This might cost an organization a tremendous expense in repairs and may limit the overall productivity in the office. So, there is no reason an organization should suffer this much because of something avoidable.

What a Security Awareness Training Entails?

As talked earlier, security awareness training is an important process to educate company employees. Failing to implement this precise program can even lead to higher reports of intrusions and ultimately, the company loses data and revenue.

A proper security awareness training entail note on:

  • Password Best Practices: It includes why passwords are important, how they should be used, common password exploitations, two-factor authentication and how to create a strong and memorable password.
  • Email and Browser Security: It includes spotting skeptical email messages, modern browser security features, prevent phishing attacks, ability to identify malware and viruses and best practices to alleviate biggest threats.
  • Social Engineering: What is social engineering and how it works, the risks od social engineering attacks, commonly used social engineering techniques and ways to stay protected against social engineering attacks.
  • Avoiding Malicious Downloads: What are the consequences of deploying malicious downloads, best practices to keep your software updated, installing new applications, ability to identify if system has been infected with malicious software and tips to deploy internet/email security software.
  • Mobile Security: The most common threats on mobile devices, how mobile POS systems work, and the risks associated with them, how to use credit/debit card while using mobile devices, tips to ensure mobile devices are safe and the risks associated with using personal devices at work.
  • Social Media Security: The best to have an ultimate experience on social media, privacy and security parameters offered on social media, risks of using social media at work, ways to minimize the social media hacks and acceptable use of social media at work.
  • Antivirus and Software Updates: Why to use antivirus software, ways to keep the software and operating system up to date, how to update OS securely, installing and configuring the antivirus settings to maximize its use and ways to secure mobile devices as stringently as other devices.
  • Secure Remote Working: The most common threats associated with accessing the company data and systems while working remotely, how to handle the private data while working remotely, steps to take when mobile devices are stolen or lost, and the software available to make remote working securer.
  • Physical Security: The importance of physical security for both applications and devices, advantages of using screen privacy options, why to wear an identity badge, reporting violations to physical safety, and reporting successful breaches.

The Bottom Line

Having such a training program for the employees of your organization is critically important for both. The employees can stay secure while the organization can prevent breaches or data leaks that happens from an employee’s system. An organization must carry out security awareness training for all its employees quarterly or half-yearly updating them about the latest security standards.

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