Four Steps to Make Cybersecurity Training as Effective as Possible

Real cybersecurity preparedness is, like most things in a business, a team effort. Everyone needs to be aware of the best practices involved in cybersecurity. Naturally, this will involve training. In the interest of making sure this training is as effective as it needs to be, we’ve assembled a few best practices to keep in mind as you design a curriculum.

The Purpose of Cybersecurity Training: Awareness

That’s the really important benefit that any training needs to emphasize, but particularly any efforts you make to educate your team about cyberthreats and dealing with them. They need to understand how prevalent threats really are, and how often small businesses are actually targeted (it’s often, by the way).

Of course, you want this training to be as effective as possible, so there are certain steps that you should take.

How to Effectively Train Your Team Members

Understand Where Your Employees Stand

In order to train your team members properly, you need to have an understanding of what they do, and critically what they don’t know about cybersecurity at the present. Are they aware of the risks that they face and how to spot them, and—most crucially—do they give these risks as much attention and respect as they should? You need to establish all of these benchmarks and see to it that they appreciate the severity of the risk.

Adjust Your Training to Their Needs

Once you’re familiar with your team’s training requirements, you can better shape the training they undergo to better fit their existing strengths and shortcomings. Customizing the training that each of your team members receives is crucial as each of them will have a different perspective… and different weaknesses as a result. A one-size-fits-all approach simply won’t be effective amongst a team’s members.

Don’t Rely on Scaring Them

Likewise, while an approach based on fear can be effective in some situations, teaching your team about IT best practices is not one of them. While fear can occasionally help prevent a mistake from happening, it can just as (if not more) often lead to an employee trying to cover up a mistake and exposing your business to greater issues as a result. Try inspiring them by appealing to their confidence, reassuring them that they can be successful in their cybersecurity.

Train, Measure, and Repeat

Now we reach the final part: measuring the impact that your training has had and running it again, trying to make it that much more effective each time. This will take some time, particularly as you account for different learning styles that your various employees will almost assuredly have. Once you’ve trained them up on the security precautions and processes that you expect them to follow, test them. By evaluating their preparedness on a semi-regular basis (so as not to become predictable), you will be able to more accurately identify where work needs to be done, and by whom.

We Can Assist You in Preparing Your Team, and With Protecting Them in the First Place

Turn to SCW and our team of experts to improve—amongst other things—your team’s cybersecurity preparedness. To enquire about this or any other of our managed IT services, give us a call at (509) 534-1530.