Information security does not only depend on investment in technology. To be effective within the corporate context, it is of paramount importance to make the entire team aware of the risks of having a vulnerable infrastructure.
This means professionals must be prepared to identify threats in order to avoid inconvenience and losses that can even make the company close its doors.
In this article, we present some practices that enable the creation of an efficient cybersecurity campaign. To facilitate your understanding, we divided our article into topics.
Ensure Leadership Engagement
Assess the Situation
Use Effective Resources to Train Your Employees
Prepare Your Employees to Spot Phishing
Measure Awareness Program Results
Update as Needed
Best Practices that Ensure Cybersecurity Awareness Some practices are highly recommended when the goal is to make a professional team aware of the importance of promoting cybersecurity in companies. Here’s what you need to do to achieve this goal:
1. Ensure Leadership Engagement
Having the support of leaders is of paramount importance to promote cybersecurity awareness among the team. After all, they are the ones who will motivate employees to make the necessary changes to prevent threats such as hacker attacks.
To be successful, leaders must understand the advantages of having employees prepared to make the company more secure.
2. Assess the Situation
Map the threats your organization and industry face to support your cybersecurity awareness program. In this way, it is possible to assemble personalized and effective training to prepare your team. Check out some answers you should look for with this survey:
Does your company use applications? Which ones?
What are the risks they offer?
Are there shared passwords to access them?
Do your employees work from home?
Do they access highly sensitive data?
3. Use Effective Resources to Train Your Employees
When training your team, use attractive and engaging resources that catch their attention and facilitate the absorption of content. Thus, the tendency is for learning to continue.
We recommend combining different strategies. You can include phishing simulations, posters, games, newsletters, comics, stickers, and webinars.
Remember to cover topics related to the types of common threats faced by your company’s industry. Among the topics to be explored, we have:
Email Scams;
Internet Security;
Password Hygiene;
Malware and Removable Media;
Regulatory Compliance.
One should bear in mind each person has a profile that must be considered in cybersecurity training. Some commonly do the right thing, others reflect on their actions, and there is still a third group, which often acts recklessly.
In order to optimize training, it is worth segmenting this audience to deliver training that generates results through targeted messages and approaches.
4. Prepare Your Employees to Spot Phishing
Phishing consists of tricking victims into sharing sensitive data, such as banking and confidential information. There are several types of phishing, the most common being where a person receives an email or text message from a malicious agent that pretends to be a trusted organization.
This message may come, for example, with a link for the person to click and enter their name and password, giving access to personal data.
Some exercises simulate phishing campaigns, preparing users to identify their signs.
5. Measure Awareness Program Results
Once you implement a security awareness program, you need to measure its results. Some metrics, provided in training, are able to point out their effectiveness. Check them out in the following topics:
Qualitative Surveys: Users answer surveys that allow them to analyze their understanding of the program and the measures they must adhere to.
Phishing Simulation Results: You can compare the number of people who clicked on the links with the number of users who warned the company about this risk;
Reporting Metrics: In this case, you should assess the number of people who report having encountered the problems pointed out in the training.
These metrics have the function of providing a comprehensive view of training through feedback from participants. They should be used to optimize capabilities, as well as to detect vulnerabilities and anticipate them.
6. Update as Needed
Use the metrics collected in training and tests to enhance the awareness campaign, offering more assertive training.
However, remember that cybersecurity challenges change as technology advances and your company takes on new employees or adopts new features.
In other words, it is essential that security awareness training be adapted to the needs of each context.