You have the best cybersecurity tools and processes your budget allows. You’re constantly monitoring and educating yourself on new security threats. You even have a robust training program in place for your team to avoid falling victim to the global cybersecurity skills shortage.

But if your workforce isn’t following the basics of good cyber hygiene, all your hard work is going to waste. So how can you educate (and influence) them to follow cybersecurity best practices?

Why is cybersecurity education for the workforce important?

When it comes to cybersecurity, not everyone is on the same page. Expecting your workforce to be educated on cybersecurity best practices is both naive and risky. 88% of data breaches are still caused by human error.

Let's assume your workforce is made up of three groups of people: newcomers straight from school or university, new joiners from another company, and existing employees.

Group 1 has never before had access to company property and large servers and files. They will have had no training before entering.

Group 2, you may have had training at your previous company. However, you cannot be sure of its quality. It may not be up to your standards or even relevant to your systems.

For group 3, you may have already provided cybersecurity training and assessed their learning as part of the process. If not, you also cannot be confident of their knowledge. As a result, it is probably safe to assume that awareness of cybersecurity best practices is low.

There’s no point having a top-notch cybersecurity team if the rest of your team doesn’t know about password security. You need to make sure everyone is clear on the basics.

Benefits of Cybersecurity Education for the Workforce

As we mentioned before, data breaches are still overwhelmingly caused by human error. All it takes is one distracted employee clicking on a suspicious link and you’re looking at months of recovery time and millions of dollars in lost revenue.

Raising awareness of cybersecurity best practices creates a culture of security where everyone feels responsible for keeping their network safe from breaches. Properly training your team increases awareness of these cybersecurity risks, actively preventing data breaches. It will empower everyone to identify and report suspicious activity, which will also make life easier for your cybersecurity team. This makes cybersecurity a company-wide concern, not just an IT issue.

Cybersecurity Best Practices for Employees

Training your entire team on personal cybersecurity best practices may seem like an impossible task. However, the reality is that many cybersecurity best practices for employees are quite simple. Everyone can learn to take basic precautions:

Use strong, regularly changed passwords and multifactor authentication

Update your software regularly

Regularly backup vital data

Use only secure Wi-Fi networks

Learn to recognize and avoid phishing attacks Learn to recognize and avoid phishing attacks

Be wary of unknown emails, links and attachments

Lock your computer when you leave your desk

The main point of training is to educate your employees on how to recognize suspicious activity and understand why these practices are important. Tailor your training to your target audience. Not everyone is an IT expert. There will also be departments that rarely use computer systems in their roles. While they will still need to know cybersecurity best practices, they will require a less extensive level of training.

Cybersecurity Risk Management Strategy

Of course, before you educate your team on your cybersecurity policy and risk management strategy, you need to have one in place first. Your cybersecurity risk management strategy is a high-level, long-term plan that helps you proactively prevent cyberattacks, as well as inform your employees on how to handle an incident should one occur, minimizing its impact.

To develop an effective strategy, you first need to understand your cyber threat landscape. Since the threat landscape is ever-changing, be prepared to update your strategy regularly. Since the lockdowns of 2020, remote work has become commonplace in many organizations. However, while remote work cybersecurity best practices may look different, many organizations have yet to update their cybersecurity management and policy accordingly.

By comparing your cybersecurity policies to new industry developments, you can start planning where you need to improve and how you will do so.

Cybersecurity Training for New Employees

Training your entire team can seem like an impossible task. Creating a cybersecurity training program for your current employees will take some time and effort, as well as planning and coordination. Once you have them trained on the basics, you can plan ahead for any follow-up and refresher courses.

The best way to avoid the daunting task of training an entire workforce at once is to make cybersecurity training part of your new employee training. Educate all new employees about your cybersecurity strategy, making it part of their onboarding. Cybersecurity is a company-wide concern, so why not introduce your cybersecurity best practices as just another part of the job here?

Quality and ongoing cybersecurity awareness for the entire company

It sounds simple, but training is an easy step to miss. It’s not enough to just put together a cybersecurity best practices guide and slide deck and say, “This is your cybersecurity training, sorted.” You need to give your team a comprehensive overview of how their actions can impact the security of the organization.

Cybersecurity training isn’t a one-time deal either. Regular follow-up training will keep your employees informed and up-to-date on the latest security policies. Your employees should also be tested (formally or informally) to see how much they actually retained from the training. We also recommend having an internal communication channel where employees can ask questions about what they learned.

This may seem like a lot to cover, but the good news is that there are plenty of tools available to help you, such as usecure in the UK and knowbe4 in the US.

A culture of cybersecurity best practices

Remember, one size does not fit all. Every company is different, and teams operate differently, too. Make sure the training and cybersecurity practices you choose are tailored to your company’s needs. The more your strategy fits your company, the better it will fit into your culture.

Most importantly, remember to lead by example. If you’re following best practices, your employees are more likely to follow suit. The same goes for your board and leadership. Ensure that all senior team members have completed their cybersecurity training and encourage them to share some of their learnings with their teams, keeping the culture of security alive.

SOURCE: Lansweeper Blog

Lansweeper is a partner of Software.com.br, a leading company in technology solutions for the corporate world in Latin America. Through partnerships with the main manufacturers in the market, Software.com.br works with Digital Transformation consulting, with consultants specialized in: Software Licensing, Cybersecurity, DevOps, Infrastructure and Data Analytics.

See more about Lansweeper on the website Software.com.br