What is security awareness training? Security awareness training is the practice companies use to provide their employees with heightened awareness on information security policies. Proper security awareness training ensures that employees follow the necessary guidelines to ensure the continued security of their organization.
Security awareness training puts emphasis on information security, and particularly on cybersecurity. Rapid advances in information technology, alongside increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks, highlight the importance of constant, specialized training on online security.
Security awareness training usually comprises various modules delivered on a regular, ongoing basis to reinforce the learning process. It can be done in-house or through a third-party service. Security awareness training topics include safe password practices, public Wi-Fi and cloud security, ransomware and malware prevention, and information and browser security.
The main purpose of security awareness training is to train employees to identify, report, and block malicious attempts that compromise the security of their organization. An effective security awareness training program helps minimize the risk of monetary, brand reputation, and legal damage by addressing and preventing the cybersecurity mistakes that employees tend to make when using email, browsing the web, or with careless document disposal.
Security awareness training is important for many reasons. Below are several key benefits of security awareness training.
Key topics that should be included in security awareness training include:
Security awareness training software allows administrators to create training tutorials with interactive quizzes and knowledge assessments.
In addition, security awareness training software allows administrators to create and schedule simulated attacks on groups of employees or individual employees and monitor their responses to the attacks.
Many awareness training platforms offer IT teams data and analytics that show which users within an organization are at most risk of causing a data breach and provide the tools for administrators to help the users that need it most.
Effective training platforms can help companies monitor and develop a culture of security and help identify areas for improvement. In addition to training users on security awareness best practices, security awareness training platforms provide analytics that help design training plans for individual users, helping them receive the support and knowledge they need.
Security awareness training software will provide tools to help businesses create engaging, hands-on virtual training and demo environments to educate employees about different cyberattacks such as phishing, ransomware, and more.
Security awareness training software will generally have the following features: