Do you provide security awareness training to your workforce? If so, when was the last time you updated the content? Chances are you are not keeping your employees sufficiently up to date on the rapidly changing tactics, techniques, and procedures used by cybercriminals which means your training will not be as effective as it should be.
Security awareness training used to be a relatively straightforward process aimed at teaching members of the workforce good cybersecurity practices such as choosing complex passwords, exercising caution when entering sensitive information on screen to ensure they are not being watched, and looking for spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, unusual email addresses, and other signs of phishing emails. Providing an annual security awareness training session once a year or biannually was satisfactory, but things are now very different.
Cybercriminals are constantly developing new ways of tricking employees, translators are much more accurate than they once were, and generative AI can be leveraged not only to create phishing emails free of errors but these tools can also be used to create new lures to trick employees into responding, not to mention the use of deepfakes that can be incredibly convincing.
While the main threat is still email-based attacks, cybercriminals are using a range of methods to reach employees including SMS messages, instant messaging services, social media platforms, and voice phishing, and often a combination of those methods. For example, initial contact may be made via email, and the recipient is told to call the provided phone number urgently to prevent a payment for a subscription service from being taken from their account. Tactics are also changing rapidly, with new attacks on employees constantly being developed. Any training program that is not constantly being changed to reflect these new tactics means there will be significant knowledge gaps and cybercriminals will be all too quick to exploit.
While the aim of security awareness training for many businesses is to raise the baseline level of knowledge and ensure that everyone is aware of security risks that they are likely to encounter, given the rapidly changing threat landscape and the sophistication of phishing and BEC attacks, more needs to be done.
Security awareness training should be an ongoing process, with training provided regularly throughout the year. Training should be provided at least monthly and preferably weekly, using short training modules that can be completed in just a few minutes. Providing training regularly in small bite-size chunks helps to keep cybersecurity fresh in the mind, makes it more likely that the information will be remembered, allows businesses to keep employees up to date on changing tactics, and it is much easier to fit the training into busy workflows. The training content can be completed when employees find they have 10 minutes spare.
Developing a training course is time-consuming, especially when the content needs to be regularly refreshed. The easiest approach is to use a training vendor who keeps their content up to date based on the latest threat intelligence and provides a platform that makes creating tailored training courses for businesses and the individuals who work there a quick and easy process.
The SafeTitan platform from TitanHQ has been developed to make security awareness training simple for employers, allowing them to create effective training courses tailored for each individual, job role, or department. The platform makes it easy to automate training programs so they run continuously throughout the year, including automated training in response to errors by employees. When a security error is made, training relevant to that error is immediately generated. That means the problem is nipped in the bud as training is delivered when it is most likely to have the desired effect – changing behavior to prevent similar errors in the future.
The SafeTitan platform includes hundreds of training modules of no more than 10 minutes, which can be easily customized and compiled into training courses for all job roles and knowledge levels, with new content constantly added based on the latest threat intelligence. The platform includes a phishing simulator that allows simulations to be conducted to give employees practice at identifying threats as well as to provide management with feedback on the effectiveness of the training. Weak links can be identified and corrected through further training and, like the training courses, the simulations can be automated.
The SafeTitan platform allows businesses to adopt a more proactive approach to security awareness training to stay one step ahead of cybercriminals and develop a security culture through training where employees can recognize, avoid, and report security threats. Coupled with the SpamTitan anti-spam service and the PhishTitan anti-phishing platform, businesses will be well protected in this ever-changing threat landscape.
Give the TitanHQ team a call to find out more about improving your technical defenses against phishing, malware, and other threats as well as creating a formidable human firewall. All TitanHQ solutions are available on a free trial and the team will be happy to arrange a product demonstration to help get you started.