Many information security challenges and threats relate to employee and affiliate behavior. To help reduce negative behaviors, organizations need a solid security awareness training program. Security awareness training establishes a set of processes and procedures used to educate employees about cybersecurity.
The Human Element
It is often stated that “Cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility.” This should be the fundamental approach for all organizations, as many information security controls, procedures, policies, and technologies depend on human judgement. Therefore, organizations must continually provide suitable and relevant cybersecurity training to reduce the security impacts of the human element.
To create an effective training program, organizations must address the combined elements of advancing technologies and human interaction, as both weight heavily upon the success of any information security program.
Unfortunately, organizations entrenched in keeping pace with the latest and greatest technologies often fall short when dealing with the human element. They lose focus and neglect to adapt their security training to the evolving technologies.
Changes in the Threat Landscape
Advanced cybersecurity threats continue to exploit the human element in all organizations of all sizes. This is evident in the rise of social engineering attacks, with spam and phishing attempts as the primary vehicle for exploiting users. According to the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, “Phishing via email was the most prevalent variety of social attack.”
Prevention Techniques
Proven best practices for addressing threats associated with human behaviors are centered on training and awareness. Since the human element is often described as the weakest link, combining security awareness training with phishing training helps turn the human element into a human firewall. With proper training and awareness, employees can quickly identify and report on suspicious activities and, therefore, reduce the threats of social engineering attacks.
Education
Provide engaging security training and education for employees at every level of the organization.
Awareness
Raise employee awareness to such an extent that they think independently and securely at all times.
Continually Monitor and Measure
Continually monitor and measure security training with metrics that track employee security awareness at all times.
How we can help you
HPS is proud to be a KnowBe4 Certified Partner. With this partnership, we are part of the solution for providing access to advanced security training. We help our customers address the human element of security by raising awareness of social engineering attacks that include phishing.
How do you rank in relation to phishing prevention?
Security awareness and training is pivotal to improvement, but having access to measurable metrics is the only way to continually improve. Let us help you establish your baseline for phishing click-through rates so that you can easily identify users who need additional training. A baseline also provides your organization with the exact percentage of users who open malicious emails after receiving your organization’s initial security and awareness training.