Cybersecurity awareness training is now vital for businesses to raise employees’ awareness of cyber threats. Here we will explain why you need real-time security awareness training and phishing simulations and the difference they can make to your security posture.
The biggest cybersecurity threat faced by businesses is phishing. Phishing attacks target employees as cybercriminals and nation-state actors know all too well that employees are a weak link in security defenses. If they can get a phishing email in front of an employee and give them a plausible reason for taking the action they suggest, they can steal credentials that will give them the access they need or get the employee to download and open a malicious file, that will download malware and provide persistent access to the network.
If doesn’t always need to be a sophisticated phishing attempt if the email lands in the inbox of a busy employee or one who lacks security awareness. Many unsophisticated phishing attempts succeed due to human error. The problem is that phishing attempts are often sophisticated, and are now being crafted using LLMs that not only ensure that the emails are devoid of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, but LLMs can also help to devise new phishing lures.
All it takes is for one phishing attempt to be successful to give an attacker the access they need for an extensive compromise. Cybercriminals often gain access to an employee’s email account and then use that account to conduct further phishing attempts internally, until they compromise large numbers of email accounts and manage to steal credentials with high privileges. Since email accounts often contain a wealth of sensitive and valuable data, the attack does not even need to progress further for it to be costly to remediate.
Businesses need to ensure that they have robust email security defenses, including an email security solution with sandboxing, AI, and machine learning detection to identify and block malware threats and zero-day phishing attacks, malicious URL detection capabilities, and a solution that is constantly updated with the latest threat intelligence. While the most advanced cloud-based email security solutions will block the vast majority of malicious emails, they will not block all threats. For example, in recent independent tests, SpamTitan email security was determined to have a spam catch rate of 99.984%, a phishing catch rate of 99.99%, and a malware catch rate of 100% with zero false positives, finishing second in the test.
For the small percentage of malicious emails that do reach inboxes, employees need to be prepared, be on their guard, and have the skills to identify and report suspicious emails, which is where security awareness training and phishing simulations are needed.
The purpose of security awareness training is to raise the level of awareness of cyber threats within the workforce, teach cybersecurity best practices, and eliminate risky behaviors. Training will only be effective if it is provided regularly, building up knowledge over time. Training should ideally be provided in short regular training sessions, with training programs running continuously throughout the year. Each week, every employee can complete a short training module which will help to build awareness and keep security fresh in the mind, with the ultimate goal of creating a security culture where every employee is constantly on their guard and aware that the next email they receive could well be a phishing attempt or contain malware.
Training is most effective when combined with phishing simulations. You can teach employees how to recognize a phishing email, but simulations give them practice at detecting threats and applying their training. Further, the emails will be received when the employees are completing work duties, just the same as a genuine phishing threat. A phishing simulator can be used to automate these campaigns, and administrators can track who responds to determine the types of threats that are tricking employees and the individuals who are failing to identify threats. Training programs can then be tweaked accordingly to address the weaknesses.
The most effective phishing simulation programs automatically deliver training content in real-time in response to security mistakes. When a phishing simulation is failed, the employee is immediately notified and given a short training module relevant to the mistake they made. When training is delivered in real time it serves two important purposes. It ensures that the employee is immediately notified about where they went wrong and how they could have identified the threat, and the training is delivered at the point when it is likely to have the greatest impact.
SafeTitan from TitanHQ makes providing training and conducting phishing simulations simple. The training modules are enjoyable, can be easily fitted into busy workflows, and the training material can be tailored to the organization and individual employees and roles. The training and simulations can be automated and require little management, and since the content is constantly updated with new material and phishing templates based on the latest tactics used by cybercriminals, employees can be kept constantly up to date.
For more information about SafeTitan security awareness training and phishing simulations, give the TitanHQ team a call.