For all their benefits to growth, customer satisfaction, and the bottom line, continued technological developments exacerbate modern businesses’ digital vulnerability. We’re in the golden age of data-driven business development, yet the same is true for increasingly more complex cyberattacks.
Cutting-edge cybersecurity tools are only as effective as the understanding of the people who depend on them. That’s where regular cybersecurity training comes in. This article explores its key benefits.
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More Widespread and Sophisticated Threats
A steady increase in cyberattacks year over year is nothing new. However, the pandemic and abrupt foray of artificial intelligence into the mainstream have created new challenges.
Companies’ pivot to a digital-centric business model to stay afloat and meet increased online demand, prompted cybercriminals to ramp their efforts up as well. The scramble to digitize their services didn’t include an adequate emphasis on cybersecurity measures, resulting in an even greater incidence rate.
Large language models like ChatGPT make creating and executing malware accessible to less skilled hackers. Moreover, the human-like responses they generate have made previously easy-to-spot phishing scams and social engineering much harder to identify. As if that weren’t enough, merely releasing ChatGPT to the public resulted in an immediate and drastic uptick in phishing attempts.
Better Employee Awareness
Regular and in-depth cybersecurity training is the only means of maintaining high cybersecurity standards. The first step is acknowledging people’s understanding of cybersecurity principles and best practices aren’t complete and implementing a program to address the most common issues.
Properly trained employees will know how to recognize and avoid threats that seek to exploit human weaknesses like phishing, social engineering, and data breaches. They’ll also be better able to appreciate automated defense tools like firewalls and system updates while understanding a user’s role in their upkeep.
Risk-aware employees are less likely to engage in negligent behavior like reusing or sharing account passwords. Setting up a company-wide password manager for a team or encouraging people to use their own will mitigate this threat.
Password managers are an excellent example of straightforward yet impactful security tools. They handle the tedium of generating and storing unique passwords while also being able to secure accounts further through multi-factor authentication. User input and memorization are minimal, while the risk of compromised accounts plummets.
Reduced Costs
Rather than generating profit, cybersecurity prevents disasters that could spell financial ruin, especially for small businesses. Regular up-to-date cybersecurity training costs a fraction of the expenses resulting from data breaches, downtime & recovery, compliance, and legal fees.
Stakeholder Assurance & Social Responsibility
Companies with adequate cash reserves can successfully weather the financial impact of cyber threats. However, inadequate cybersecurity and resulting incidents may cause long-lasting reputational damage that’s hard to recover.
Training not only strengthens your cybersecurity posture, but it’s also a practice you can highlight when portraying your company as socially responsible. Customers are increasingly concerned about and invested in how companies handle and store their data. Cybersecurity training helps assure them you’re taking appropriate measures and fosters loyalty in return.
Today, businesses depend on connections. Your organization works closely with large clients, vendors, and other third-party service providers. Lax security on your end can impact them, too, leading to a domino effect if their own protections aren’t adequate.
Creating a Cybersecurity Culture
While cybersecurity training focuses on reducing the human risk factor, that’s only part of the solution. The modern training trend is to turn people from liabilities into assets. Employees who undergo them understand how to avoid harmful behavior. They are empowered and encouraged to identify and report suspicious activities before these can escalate.
Cultivating a security-centric culture implies commitment from all organizational levels and seamless integration into daily workflows & decision-making processes.
Fostering accountability is especially important in companies with a strong remote work culture since employees are more challenging to supervise. Undergoing cybersecurity training ensures employees are up to the unique challenge and encourages them to apply this new expertise to their private lives.
For example, some remote employees might not be aware of how dangerous using public Wi-Fi can be. Undergoing training will help them make better decisions, like using more secure cellular data while taking advantage of the lowest rates even when abroad if they use a trustworthy eSIM provider winning in eSIM comparison.
Ensuring Compliance
Industries and governments might be slow to adapt to the evolving cyber threat landscape. Still, they continually develop standards and laws you must uphold to stay compliant. Cybersecurity training is instrumental in achieving relevant certifications and upholding data privacy laws like the GDPR.
But it’ not just about meeting some kind of rules. Always keep in mind that compliance should be a welcome side effect of comprehensive cybersecurity training, not the end goal.
Conclusion
A robust cybersecurity strategy is the most sensible, cost-effective, and impactful measure businesses can adopt in the face of evolving cyber threats. Training is a fundamental part of any such strategy, and the faster businesses realize that the safer digital world will be for everybody. Now that you have a deeper understanding of its benefits, you can advocate for more cybersecurity training in your organization with renewed vigor.