Cybersecurity Awareness Training

Cybersecurity awareness training programs have tremendous role in changing the behavior of the weakest link in an organization which its people. Moreover, regardless of security controls in place, an organization is as secure as its weakest link, i.e. the personnel who operates the security controls. In addition, security is the responsibility of everyone in an organization and security awareness training should be provided to all personnel to an organization.

A security awareness program is a formal process that aims to train users of the organization about potential security threats to an information and information systems. And it is further aimed at educating those personnel on how to handle existing and recurring security threats.

Security awareness training may include user orientations, printed materials, security champions, lectures, security gamifications, or computer-based trainings (CBT). To strengthen the security awareness raising programs organizations may simulate different cyberattack scenarios such as social engineering, fishing and related attacks.

The course content of security awareness programs should be revised periodically to reflect the threat landscape and other emerging security issues to organizations. Besides, the awareness programs should be evaluated for their effectiveness through short quizzes, security weeks, metrics, and related measurements.

When organizations establish security awareness raising programs, they should not confuse them with education and technical training programs.

• Security awareness programs focuses on improving the behavior of personnel
• Security training focuses on improving specific technical skillsets of employees working on a given system
• Security Education is more or less long-term program that is established to empower personnel.