You can’t protect your most crucial information, networks, and systems with technology alone. To minimize the risk of a data breach and keep confidential data out of the hands of hackers, you must invest in your most important line of defense: your employees, contractors, and third-party vendors.
Security awareness training is an essential component of success cybersecurity. When you deploy targeted courses, quizzes, phishing simulations, and more, you’ll identify high-risk end users or roles, change unsafe online behavior that can leave data vulnerable cyber-attacks, and promote a security-first mindset across your entire organization.
How Does Security Awareness Training Work?
The best security awareness training programs are built on a data-driven, actionable strategy created by an organization’s CISO and other security leaders. Once this plan is finalized and related goals are set, security awareness initiatives are deployed, monitored, and optimized over time according to performance metrics and KPIs.
The pillars of strong security awareness training include:
Engaging, interactive content
Traditional, static security awareness content isn’t just boring—it limits how many end users will participate in and benefit from your training program. Content that’s interactive and gamified puts the end user in the center of a more dynamic learning experience and is proven to boost training course completion rates.
Real-world phishing simulations
Practical exercises like phishing simulations are critical tools that ensure end users can consistently spot common warning signs associated with phishing emails and other cyber-attacks. Sending these across your business ecosystem regularly is a key ingredient to consistent cyber threat detection and reporting.
Transparent communication
Implementing security awareness training courses, quizzes, and phishing simulation are only part of what makes a program successful. Continuous communication of cybersecurity best practices and training updates are a great way to increase participation and incentivize all end users to adopt secure behaviors.
Data-driven optimization
Security awareness training isn’t a one-and-done proposition—it’s an ongoing commitment to mitigating the human risk factor throughout your organization. By measuring progress with in-depth analytics and reporting, you can address high-risk areas and fuel long-term improvements with data-driven insights.
How Do I Know If My Organization Needs Security Awareness Training?
All organizations, regardless of their size, sector, or head office location should be implementing security awareness training.
With a program in place, it’s easy to:
Why Your Cybersecurity Awareness Levels is Critical
With cyber attacks becoming increasingly common and complex worldwide, understanding your organization’s cybersecurity risk levels is more important than ever before. See how your phishing email click rates compare to your peers by industry, region, and more by downloading the latest Phishing Benchmark Global Report.
Get Started with Security Awareness Training
Fortra's Terranova Security makes it easy to build risk-based campaigns that feature the industry’s highest-quality training content and real-world phishing simulations.