The Importance of Security Awareness for Employees

Just think of all the sensitive information your business competitors or hackers would love to handle. From simple identity theft to ransomware attacks on your business systems, a little security awareness goes a long way. In fact, it could save your business a world of trouble, say, when an educated employee’s finger freezes over the mouse instead of clicking through to a bad link.

Is Your Business Cybersecurity Aware?

Big and small businesses alike need online defenses, from firewalls and encrypted software to strong passwords and password managers. Still, can you imagine putting in all that work just to have one employee slip up and unknowingly hand over the wrong information to the wrong individuals?

Security breaches exploit your company or customers’ credit card information, addresses, names, and more to sully your reputation or profit in other ways. Unfortunately, because humans are infallible and hackers are always evolving their efforts, breaches happen more often than a business owner might realize. Thankfully, you can step up your defense strategy with cybersecurity awareness training.

Empower Your Employees With Cybersecurity Awareness Training

According to Verizon, about 68% of breaches in 2023 involved a non-malicious human element (individuals fell victim to attacks or made errors). In cases where the hacker demanded ransomware, each breach left the affected companies with a $46,000 average loss. Interestingly, eight out of these nine companies did not have a cybersecurity awareness program in place.

What might your business include in security awareness training topics? Ideas include:

• Educational scripted videos.
• Generic presentations covering typical programs your company uses.
• Cyber tests that update your employees on all modern-day attacks and threat types.

Your business might also want to update the training topics as cybersecurity practitioners note threat trends.

How Digital Security Training Assists Your Company

There’s a lot to be said for adding a layer of security that simultaneously empowers your employees to recognize and thwart cyberthreats. Here are a few notable benefits your business might enjoy with a security awareness training program in place:

Prevent Data Breaches from Malicious Activity

Has a hacker sent out a faux email or imitation website login page? Your security-aware employees won’t open them or fill in sensitive data. Trained employees will also know to look for certain features like phishing attempts with misspellings or suspicious links.

Put Up Cyber Defenses

Awareness helps with observing malicious activity and understanding protocols, but training also creates a much stronger defensive line with stronger passwords and multi-step authentication. You could even outline GDPR and HIPAA compliance so that employees bar threats before they even begin.

Boost Business by Putting Your Customers at Ease

Vercara’s 2023 research showed that about 66% of customers would not do further business with a company after a data breach. About 44% of those survey participants believed that a company only falls victim to these attacks without adequate cybersecurity in place.

If your customers fear their credit card information, email and home addresses, and other personal information are vulnerable with you, they’ll leave. With security awareness training, your business may find that developing a culture of safety and security also streamlines this human risk management factor.