Why Your Business Needs Cyber Security Awareness Training

Ever wonder if you should bother with the cost and time needed for security awareness training? Some industries are legally required to host security awareness training (like banking); but quite a few industries aren’t required to have employee training. Here are a few reasons why you should host cyber security awareness training even if you aren’t required. 

If you’re not as familiar with the idea of security awareness training, here’s a short description of what is it. If you are familiar, you can skip this paragraph (you’re welcome). This type of cyber security focused training is a way for businesses and employers to educate their employees about the risks of cyber security aka “the hackers”. The training is most commonly taught either in person or through a video presentation with participation required of all employees. Yes, even the CEO. This training is further followed up with a fake phishing attempt or two in an effort to reinforce and see who absorbed the training.  

Cyber attacks are growing

If you consider what isn’t going to change in the next few years, one of the most obvious answers would be the growth of technology. Every aspect of our lives is becoming more and more entangled with technology.

It really just boils down to this… More technology equals more cyber attacks. The End.

With personal and professional lives moving online, this just widens the playing field to hackers. They have the unfair advantage of knowing how they are going to attack you and your employees. Will it be a phishing email? Whatever the attack method, they maintain the advantage unless your employees are empowered to fight back.

Training that focuses on the newest attack methods as well as some of the most common are going to help keep your business secure by educating your employees. And not only will it help your business, but it will help keep your employees and their families more secure.

You Save Money

In the United States, the average cost of a data breach in 2022 was $9.44 million.

The cost of a breach will make any CFO cry. In the United States, the average cost of a data breach in 2022 was $9.44 million. Of course, there’s always the chance it wouldn’t be too bad. But is that a risk you want to take? When considering the cost of a breach or ransomware attack, consider what can cost you money.  Some things include:

• Loss of revenue
• Reputation damage
• Loss of clients
• Operational disruptions
• Lawsuits
• Intellectual property (IP) cyber theft
• Theft of personally identifiable information (PII)
• Compromised client data, sensitive business information and equipment

Each of those lines can add up fast. If you’re able to help train your employees for a low cost, potentially preventing a security breach, why wouldn’t you? The long-term ROI is there!

It can help positively influence company culture

Many companies want to promote a security first company culture but don’t entirely know how to go about doing it. A sticker for watching a video an event doesn’t quite cut it.

Cyber security awareness training can help. If you implement a regular training and encourage security first, it will have a positive impact on your culture. Educating your employees on cyber threats can only help you and them. So why wouldn’t you?

You can even make the training a culture event. Grab every employee and host a training over lunch. Bring in food, have fun, let them know cyber security threats are nothing to be deathly afraid of – but they should be on the lookout still. Even consider how you can give public recognition for an employee who was security aware. Maybe they reported a phishing email to IT. With that reported email, you can then communicate with all employees about a now known and relevant phishing attempt to be aware of.

Don’t be in the news – train your employees

The main reason businesses don’t want to have security awareness training is the time and the cost. But again, the cost of a breach or ransomware would far outweigh the cost of a training. And if you can improve your company culture while also helping protect yourself? Why wouldn’t you.

To begin a discussion about having security awareness training, we recommend you contact a local  cyber security company. They’ll be able to not only take care of your business personally but also customize the training for your specific business. The more your put into the training, the more your employees will learn, and the safer your business will be.

To learn more about Alias and how we can help you, drop us a message!