How Can Security Awareness Training Solutions Help Protect Corporate Data?

According to a Ponemon report, credential theft increased by 65% in 2022, and cyber-incidents that took longer than 90 days to contain cost organizations an average of $17.19 million. Insider threats continue to negatively affect the security and integrity of small and enterprise businesses. With training, employees can identify a threat and adequately deal with it. In order to tackle prevalent phishing and social engineering threats, security awareness training equips employees with real-world scenarios and resources, enabling them to proactively prepare and defend against these risks.

A few more concerning statistics from the report:

• The more employees within an organization, the more an organization risks a compromise from insider threats, meaning corporate growth increases your cybersecurity risks.
• The average containment time to stop a threat is 77 to 85 days.
• Most attacks happen from negligence, but one out of four is from a malicious employee.
• Mitigation software using artificial intelligence can help prevent a compromise, but security awareness training lowers the risks of a compromise and should be your first defense.

 

What is Security Awareness Training?

How cybersecurity material is introduced to employees depends on your service provider. Still, a good service offers gamification and concise, easily digestible materials, making it easy for employees in any department to understand common red flags and motivations for phishing threats. Cyber-attack simulations provide real-world examples of phishing and social engineering so that employees are prepared to identify them.

Security awareness training involves assessments, cybersecurity resources, videos, and interactive activities. Usually, a company makes cybersecurity awareness training delivery convenient so employees can read materials or watch videos easily. A short quiz after a video helps administrators understand the efficacy of videos and determine additional training opportunities for employees with lower marks on quizzes. For example, additional training might be necessary if an employee needs to complete two out of five questions.

 

Benefits of Security Awareness Training

Security awareness training is a proactive approach to cybersecurity, and being proactive is necessary for effective defenses. Often, corporations only consider infrastructure, software, and hardware involved with identifying and mitigating cyber threats. They forget the human element, which is the weakest link in cybersecurity. Because humans are the weakest link, phishing, and social engineering are incredibly effective at delivering malware, ransomware, or stealing user credentials.

Although cybersecurity infrastructure is necessary, it's even more effective when targeted users stop threats before relying on antivirus, firewalls, or antimalware. The latter could potentially fail, especially with a zero-day threat, so cybersecurity infrastructure should be considered a fail-safe rather than a primary defense. Humans with security awareness training are your first defense, and cybersecurity infrastructure is a safety net in case humans fail to stop a threat.

Every organization and managed service provider's goal should be to reduce the risks of a compromise. Security awareness training won't reduce risks by 100%, but it significantly reduces risks and should be a part of any cybersecurity strategy. Delivering cybersecurity information to users does not take days, so it will not interfere with employee productivity. 

For just a few minutes of employees' time, organizations empower them to identify threats and give them more confidence that they will not be the reason for a successful data breach. It also protects customer and employee data from being disclosed to cyber-criminals that will later be sold on darknet markets. A successful data breach can bring in millions of dollars for an attacker, so it's worth the effort for cyber-criminals to assemble a sophisticated attack against any corporation.

In addition to protecting corporate data, corporations get the benefits of:

• Increase employee confidence: Employees can be confident in knowing that they are aware of phishing, the signs of a phishing attack, mitigation strategies, and the right people to report an incident.
• Better bring your own device (BYOD) policies: If you allow employees to use their own devices, personal devices become an added risk and increase your attack surface. With security awareness training, employees know the signs of phishing and social engineering. They can stop threats on their corporate workstations and their personal devices.
• Stay compliant: Most compliance regulations require organizations to implement strategies that do whatever is necessary to protect corporate data, especially data containing consumer-sensitive information.
• Stop malware installations: Malware gives cyber-criminals remote access to corporate workstations or silently eavesdrops on network traffic while sending data to an attacker-controlled server. Employees must know not to run macros, scripts, or executable files on corporate workstations.
• Avoid employee credential theft: Credential theft also gives cyber-criminals remote access to workstations or the network itself. Because it’s a legitimate username accessing the network, it can be difficult for administrators to detect suspicious behavior. Using security awareness training, organizations avoid being a victim of unknown credential theft and a network compromise that could last for months before discovery.

 

How SafeTitan Can Help with Your Security Awareness Training

SafeTitan is reported to reduce staff susceptibility to phishing by up to 92%. Reports show that SafeTitan targets employee-specific needs, making it a flexible solution for any corporation or managed service provider. The SafeTitan solution has features that help employees identify phishing and social engineering, and the gamification component makes it more interesting and fun for employees as they go through course materials.