As the threat landscape expands and cybercrime increasingly infiltrates both our professional and personal lives, it is essential to continually raise awareness of the risks facing your employees. Protecting your company and its reputation is critical, but we also have a duty of care to safeguard employees from potential dangers. Fifty percent of businesses experienced a cyber attack in the past year.
So, how do you create a cyber security awareness programme?
Creating an effective cyber security awareness programme starts with understanding your organisation’s specific risks and the wider threat landscape. Begin by collaborating with your threat intelligence and risk management teams to identify both external influences and internal vulnerabilities. This will help you pinpoint the key areas of concern unique to your organisation.
Once you have this information, develop targeted messaging that addresses these threats. Make sure the content is relevant and actionable for different departments and roles within the organisation. Use existing communication channels, such as internal newsletters, company meetings, and departmental platforms, to share this information effectively.
To make your messages more relatable, create a distinctive identity for your campaign. This could involve using real-world examples and engaging visuals that resonate with employees.
See examples of award-winning cyber awareness campaigns here.
Consider a multi-channel approach that combines internal communications with creative content from external agencies, utilising both digital and traditional methods to reach a wider audience.
Finally, continuously assess how well your programme is working. Track engagement metrics, monitor changes in employee behaviour and incident rates, and gather feedback to refine your strategy as needed. By following these steps, you can build a robust cyber security awareness programme that educates employees and inspires them to take action, ultimately strengthening your organisation’s defence against cyber threats.
What are the best methods for delivering cyber security awareness training?
Continuous learning is key to ensuring your cyber security messages stick and are remembered. Instead of relying on one-off training sessions, consider these effective approaches:
- Interactive learning: Create engaging, realistic scenarios that closely mimic real-world cyber incidents. This hands-on approach helps employees better prepare for actual threats they might face.
- Customised content: Tailor your training materials and simulations to reflect your organisation’s specific IT infrastructure and potential threats. This makes the training more relevant and relatable to your employees’ daily work.
- Diverse threat coverage: While phishing simulations are important, they shouldn’t be your only focus. Cyber security threats are diverse, so your training should cover a wide range of potential risks. This might include social engineering tactics, password security, data protection, and safe browsing practices.
By implementing these strategies, you can create a more comprehensive and effective cyber security awareness program that goes beyond basic phishing tests and truly prepares your team for the complex threat landscape they face.
What are examples of cyber security nudges and do they work?
Cyber security nudges are effective tools for guiding users towards safer online behaviours. Examples of nudges are:
- Email Warning Tags (EWT): These tags remind users to be cautious when evaluating emails from external sources, encouraging a more critical mindset.
- “Report Phishing” buttons: Easily accessible buttons in email make it simple for users to report suspicious messages.
- Password strength meters: These provide immediate feedback on password complexity, nudging users to create stronger passwords.
- Prompts for software updates: Well-timed reminders can encourage users to keep their systems up-to-date.
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA) setup prompts: Nudging new employees to set up MFA during onboarding can improve overall security.
These nudges have shown to be effective in improving cyber security behaviours. However, it’s important to note that nudges have limitations. If they are too intrusive or complex, users may become frustrated and ignore them or find workarounds. The key is to strike a balance between effective nudging and respecting user autonomy. Additionally, the effectiveness of nudges may decrease over time due to desensitisation, emphasising the need for dynamic and contextual content.
How can you measure the impact of cyber security awareness training?
Measuring the impact of cyber security awareness training is a multifaceted process, encompassing both quantifiable metrics and qualitative assessments. In our experience, many organisations use dashboards to track key quantifiable indicators:
- Phishing simulation statistics
- Security incident metrics
- Compliance training completion rates
- Survey response data
However, a comprehensive evaluation extends beyond these measurable aspects. It’s crucial to assess the overall maturity of your awareness program. The SANS Security Awareness Maturity Model has emerged as an industry standard, serving a dual purpose:
- Benchmarking: Organisations can gauge their programme’s effectiveness against industry peers.
- Strategic planning: The model provides a roadmap for programme development and enhancement.
This model offers proven, step-by-step guidance for maturing your awareness programme, ensuring a holistic approach to cyber security education and culture building. By combining quantitative metrics with this maturity assessment, organisations can gain a more complete picture of their program’s impact and chart a course for continuous improvement.
How often should staff undergo cyber security awareness training?
It’s not a once and done activity; effective cyber security awareness relies on consistent and timely communication to reinforce key messages and maintain employee vigilance. Research supports the following strategies:
- Repetition and Consistency: Regular reminders about cyber security risks enhance retention, as studies show that repeated exposure improves knowledge recall.
- Timing and Relevance: Carefully planned communication is essential due to information overload. People are more receptive to timely and relevant messages.
- Focused Topics: Concentrating on a few key topics and integrating them with other organisational programs can improve retention, aligning with cognitive load theory that favors manageable information chunks.
- Beyond Mandatory Training: While annual compliance training is necessary, it should not be the only method of education. Continuous learning approaches are more effective than one-time sessions. Consider taking part in Cyber Security Awareness Month in October.
- Personal Relevance: Making content applicable to both professional and personal contexts such as cyber safety for at home for their families increases engagement, as people retain information better when it has personal significance.
- Engaged leadership: leaders play a pivotal role in embedding a cyber security culture. It’s a collective responsibility among leaders to ensure it extends across the organisation.
If you’d like to know how blue can help you with your cyber security awareness training then contact us today.
