What is the Value of Cyber Security Training for Employees?

In an ever more complex business world, cyber security can often be an afterthought for businesses. Companies do not generally provide cyber security awareness training to employees or their IT teams. They cannot put names to the various technical aspects and if they do conduct employee trainings, it is often a one off event. This is not a constructive approach to cyber security in business.

Cyber attacks cost companies hundreds of billions in any currency every year. A single attack can cause damage in the millions, and can easily decimate a small business. Breaches can cost companies massive data loss and disruption to business continuity which can translate into the millions as well.

So, that leaves us with the question: Why are businesses so reluctant to conduct cyber security training for their employees, and raise their awareness?

Shockingly, many companies are still truly convinced that they are under the radar. It sounds insane, but true. The facts dictate quite differently. Consider for just a moment, just one possible aspect of many: Ransomware. One single phishing e mail with one single attachment has the potential to infect an entire network. Critical files encrypted or worst case scenario eliminated completely. The disruptions to business continuity have a snowball effect and many business days (reasearch puts that average at TEN DAYS) could be lost. Research shows that 50% of businesses have experienced a Ransomeware attack just this past year.

Cyber security issues can also be attributed to internal human error and data leakage from within. It is not just a company’s’ defense strategy that determines their cyber security health. Companies that do invest in their employees cyber security see the amount of breaches go down, so a few months of cyber security training can go a long way to saving many hours of business continuity later. We have discovered that a further reason for the lack of cyber security training for employees derives from the fact that many companies are more comfortable relying on it’s physical aspects; cyber security architecture, software, and firewalls. Companies like this that favour heavy handed IT investment in cyber security tools and technologies and overlook or drastically minimize investing in their teams.

So what are the real Benefits of training employees in cyber security?

Good Cyber health is a matter of systematic and deliberate effort that is made by companies. Limitless benefits can be gained from a well-planned and executed training program. Simulation is also a key aspect of that same training to enable employees to perform essential functions effectively. The main training benefits include:

Avoid Potential Risk: By providing employee awareness, during security training, hacking incidents can be simulated compelling participants to think like a hacker and keep them one-step ahead of hackers.

Building A Secure Environment: Proper cyber security training in an organization correlates to the likelihood of it’s strong security environment within the organization. There will be less security breaches, and their associated costs will also diminish. Your staff will be empowered to take immediate action in the event of a breach and will improve the execution of your organization’s information security policies, processes and standards.

We measure the success of a cyber security training program when we see the amount of possible alerts go up due to the awareness of employee vigilance, but we see the actual amount of attacks and breaches go down. That is our yardstick for measuring the investment to be made in the investment of cyber security education for employees.