Employee training is a critical part of any organization's cybersecurity initiative. Employees must be able to identify and respond correctly to cyberthreats. Here are some employee training best practices that you can make a part of your cybersecurity training program.
Create an IT policy handbook
Create a handbook of your IT policies and share it with every new employee, regardless of their position in the company. This IT policy handbook must be provided to everyone from the CEO to the newest intern in your organization. Ensure this handbook is consistently updated to address new issues - IT is constantly evolving at great speed and your handbook must keep pace with the latest technologies, threats, and concerns.
Make cybersecurity training a part of your official training initiatives
Cybersecurity training should be a part of your corporate training initiatives for all new employees. Conduct refresher sessions periodically to ensure your existing employees are up-to-date on the latest cyberthreats. At the end of the training session, conduct tests, mock drills, certification exams, etc. - good training includes assessment. Provide follow up training for those who need it. This strong emphasis on training will ensure your employees take cybersecurity seriously.
Zero-day alerts
The cybercrime landscape is constantly evolving. Every day, cybercriminals find new vulnerabilities to exploit and new methods to steal your data or to hack into your systems. Zero-day alerts are a great way to keep your employees updated. Has a new security threat been discovered or an important update released for software your business relies upon? Send an email to everyone spelling out clearly what the threat is and what they need to do to mitigate it. Then follow up to verify they took the necessary steps.
Transparency
Let your employees know who to contact in the event of any IT-related challenges. It is critical that this contact be knowledgeable about both potential threats and their mitigations. An uneducated or inexperienced employee attempting to troubleshoot a solution via Internet searches could end up accidentally downloading and installing malware posing as a software patch or could make damaging changes to your systems.
Considering the serious ramifications caused by cybercrime attacks, organizations should strengthen their first line of defense against cybercriminals - their own employees.