Training Your Employees on Information Security Awareness

Maintaining organizational information security is more challenging than ever, and while it may be a hard pill to swallow, breaches in information security are often due to the carelessness or ignorance of company employees.

One of the most effective ways to protect your business from these risks is by investing in comprehensive information security awareness training for your employees. This blog will explore the importance of such training and how it can benefit your company's overall security posture.

Importance Of Cybersecurity Awareness Training

Employee training is only one aspect of an organization’s information security policy, but it’s an important one. The need to establish a better sense of information security awareness among employees cannot be emphasized enough and can go a long way in ensuring that private information is secured and protected as effectively as possible.

Below are just some of the benefits of employee security awareness training.

Customer Trust

As a company, your relationship with your customers is key, and respecting the need to protect customer information plays a key role in that.

Consumers are more savvy today about various types of information security threats, and they expect companies to safeguard their data.

In order to gain the trust of your customers and sustain it, as a company, you must collect, use, and protect private information with a keen sense of judgment and foresight.

Reputation

A good reputation is essential in gaining and retaining customers. When data breaches occur, they put the company at risk and cause significant damage to the relationship with clients.

Information security awareness among your employees can significantly reduce the risk of data breaches, which can, in turn, help protect your organization’s reputation.

Compliance with Policies

A few decades ago, no legal standards existed for data protection. HIPAA was the first-ever standard for this type of security, but other privacy and security laws have followed. Organizations – particularly those that operate across multiple jurisdictions – need employee training to ensure compliance with all relevant standards.

Types of Information Security Threats to Cover

When designing information security training, you need to include sections that focus on authentication, network security, device access, and other basic security practices.

Protecting Authentication

Employees are privy to sensitive information, and that begins with login information used to authenticate employees and give them access to company data.

Any information security awareness training must emphasize that authentication information needs to be handled with care – not written down somewhere carelessly where it can be acquired by anybody. Advanced systems like two-factor authentication can also be used to help enhance information security.

Keeping The Network Connection Secure

The network connection used by the organization also plays a key role in presenting threats to the information security system.

Employees need to understand that wireless internet connections can be quite unsafe and can be the source of security breaches if not considered wisely. The company should invest in a secure connection and educate employees on the usage of services such as VPN, where the transmitted data is encrypted.

Controlling Access to Devices

Just as login information and passcodes are to be protected, the devices and accounts that employees have access to must also be carefully managed.

It’s good practice to make employees aware of the fact that work devices contain sensitive information and must not be accessible to unauthorized personnel, such as family or friends. In the age of remote work, this is especially important.

Other Basic Security Practices

There are certain essential security guidelines that must be adhered to by all employees to help ensure information security, and training must include the how and why of each measure.

This includes topics like:

• Anti-virus software
• Firewalls
• Malware
• Phishing
• Usage of flash drives

Best Practices for Information Security Training

If you’re wondering how to create an effective information security training program, here are some best practices to keep in mind.

Train the Entire Workforce

These days, even low-level employees can present an information security threat, so it’s important to provide some level of information security awareness training for everyone from the C-suite to janitorial staff. Remember to include any contractors that may gain physical or electronic access to company resources.

Make It Ongoing

It’s crucial to make information security training an ongoing affair, especially when it comes to topics like phishing awareness training for employees. You need to keep the basics fresh, but you also need to keep employees up to date on the latest scams.

Social engineering schemes are cropping up all the time, and they’re not always as obvious as the ones our grandparents fell for. Bad actors now make sophisticated bids to gain trust so that people will disclose information. Your employees need to know the latest gag.

Keep It Engaging

To be effective, information security awareness training should engage employees. This doesn’t require gamification, though that can help. Periodic learning checks, interactive course elements, and relatable examples can all help keep learners’ attention from drifting away.

Get Information Security Awareness Training with Us

When trying to get your hands around information security awareness training, it can help to start with well-crafted courses on general concepts from a trusted provider like us. This way, you get the benefits of employee security awareness training with less effort on your part.

Our Information Security and Privacy Fundamentals course is online, self-paced, and designed for retention and engagement. Enroll today!