What To Include In Your Security Awareness Training
Employees are among the biggest cybersecurity threats. They can make mistakes that may lead to cyber-attacks. Hackers and cybercriminals can also use your employees to access sensitive information. For instance, they can send phishing emails containing malicious links and attachments. That’s where security awareness training comes in.
Security awareness training enables you to educate your employees about cybercrimes, how they occur, and how to prevent them. That way, your staff can avoid blunders, be cautious, and increase their security measures. However, for practical security awareness training, there are some topics you must add to your program. You can contact Antisyn to ensure that everything works well. That said, here’s what to include in your program:
- Types Of Cyber Attacks
Your employees should know all the types of cyber attacks, how they occur, and how to prevent them. This way, they can quickly identify the incident before it happens. Some common types of cyber attacks include:
- Phishing attacks: This social engineering attack occurs when a hacker sends emails with malicious attachments or links. Attackers can access sensitive information and account details by clicking on these links or opening the attachments.
- Insider attacks: This originates within your organization. It happens when a current or previous employee who knows everything about your company accesses sensitive data and uses it for their interests.
- SQL injection attacks: In Structured Query Language (SQL) injection, an attacker adds malicious code into a susceptible site search box, making the server disclose vital information.
- Password attacks: In this attack, a cybercriminal or hacker uses several programs and cracking tools to access your passwords.
- Denial of service attack: This occurs when cybercriminals aim at networks, servers, or systems and fill them with traffic to deplete their funds and bandwidth. In doing so, attending to incoming requests becomes difficult, slowing your website or shutting down.
These are some of the common cybersecurity attacks that occur in most organizations. You can hire an IT support Hamilton to help you handle this topic professionally and have your workers have them at their fingertips.
- Physical Security
In addition to attacking your computers and other devices, hackers can also break into your offices and try to access sensitive data. Insiders can also copy passwords and valuable information. Therefore, teach your employees to be vigilant and keep sensitive documents safe. For instance, they should lock doors and windows whenever they leave the office. Additionally, they shouldn’t leave passwords on papers on top of their desks.
Other practices to mitigate physical attacks include:
- Not allowing new employees and visitors to watch as you enter your passwords
- Restrict access to certain areas
- Be wary of anyone claiming to be inspectors and want to enter your system
- Don’t leave devices unprotected after their shift is over
- Keeping office-issued tablets or computers safely
When your employees know these, they won’t leave sensitive physical documents unattended, thus lowering the chances of them being stolen or copied.
- Password Protection
Password protection is one of the best ways to secure and safeguard your data against breaches. Therefore, let your employees know the benefits of securing their devices. Motivate them to create strong passwords. Hackers can easily crack or guess simple passwords, increasing the risk of exposing your data.
Ideally, a strong password includes the following:
- Has a minimum of eight characters
- It is unique and hasn’t been used for other websites
- It has a combination of numbers, lowercase letters, uppercase letters, and special symbols
- Shouldn’t follow simple patterns like 123 or abc
- It shouldn’t be a dictionary word
- Shouldn’t use obvious substitutions
- It doesn’t contain names, phone numbers, addresses, or birthdays
On top of these password ideas, teach your employees good practices like updating their passwords regularly, not sharing passwords, and not saving them in browsers.
- Threat Recognition
Another crucial thing your employees should know to mitigate cybersecurity risks is how to identify threats. With this, your staff can detect a breach as quickly as possible, preventing the attack from occurring or reducing its damage. Here are some signs that can indicate a cyber attack:
- Inability to access your account
- Slow programs than usual
- Extra pop-ups occurring
- Fishy phone calls
- Deleted or modified files
- Irregular restarts and shutdowns
- Dubious admin activity
- Uncommon outbound network traffic
- Continuous browser redirects
Inform your employees to report any suspicious activities immediately to the bodies responsible.
- Social Media Use
Your employees can use social media to boost your brand’s awareness by posting your products or services. However, sometimes, over-posting can result in sensitive data being exposed. Therefore, it’s essential to educate your employees on what they should share online and how to secure their social media accounts.
Conclusion
Security awareness training is one of the best ways of mitigating cybersecurity risks. However, this process may take a long time. Thankfully, knowing what to include in your program becomes more straightforward and will take a short time. You’ll be sure that the information you convey will be helpful to your employees. Consider enlisting the help of specialists to ensure the program is done appropriately.
