Headline stories about complex cyber attacks aren’t the only threats organisations need to consider. According to GOV.UK the most common cyber threats are relatively unsophisticated and partnered with an untrained team, your organisation could face significant financial repercussions, a damaged reputation and even business closure.
Key advice to organisations is to educate your teams on cyber security and promote a positive security culture. Regular cyber security training will empower your team to recognise and report potential threats, which adds an essential layer of protection.
Without consistent cyber security training, your organisation is at risk of cyber attacks and breaches. Do you think your team are prepared?
Cyber security training: What are the consequences of not educating your team?
A shocking 50% of businesses (70% for medium-sized) and a third of charities (32%) have reported experiencing a cyber breach or attack in the last 12 months, according to GOV.UK.
Not educating your team about cyber security threats, leaves your organisation vulnerable. Ransomware, phishing attacks and malware are among some of the common techniques used by bad actors to harm organisations and could lead to the following consequences:
- Financial Loss: Cyber attacks can lead to detrimental financial damage due to theft of funds, loss of business, and costs associated with responding to the attack and repairing the damage.
- Reputational Damage: Your reputation can be severely damaged after a cyber attack. It can cause a decrease in customer trust, especially if data is compromised and loss of business. This can have a long-term effect on your organisation’s market position.
- Operational Disruption: Cyber attacks can disrupt the normal operations of your organisation, causing downtime, loss of productivity, and delays in services or product delivery.
- Legal and Regulatory Consequences: Failing to protect sensitive data can leave your organisation facing legal action and hefty fines, especially under regulations like the GDPR.
What cyber security training should I provide to my team?
Implementing comprehensive cyber security training is an important measure for all organisations, no matter your size or industry.
Establishing a positive security culture and providing necessary cyber security training to your team will create a human firewall, acting as an additional layer of defence.
When it comes to training, these are some of the topics that you should cover. Simple changes that will go a long way to helping your organisation to stay safe from cyber threats:
- Phishing Training– A careless click could be all that it takes to jeopardise your systems. Providing phishing training to your team will give them the knowledge they need to help spot and report a phishing email.
- Password Policy – Shockingly, the average employee will reuse the same password 13 times across various accounts, according to a 2024 TechReport guide. Creating a password policy that ensures that users set strong and different passwords is important to help keep cyber criminals out of all of your accounts. If someone uses the same password for everything and that password has been compromised, the criminals then have access to all of their accounts.
- Multi-factor authentication – Settings > 2FA > On! Multi-factor authentication (MFA) or two-factor authentication (2FA) is a security process that requires users to provide two or more verification factors to gain access to a resource, enhancing the protection of sensitive data. Enabling MFA/2FA should be enforced company-wide and for every account.
- Social media threats – Organisations should train their teams on how social media attacks operate, it should be advised that accounts are set to private and before every online post, they should think about what they are sharing and whether it’s worth the risk.
How can phishing training help my organisation?
Your people are often the weakest link when it comes to cyber security, which is why nurturing security awareness within your teams is pivotal.
Phishing attacks are a major threat and 84% of businesses have experienced a phishing-related breach or attack, according to a 2024 GOV.UK report. Therefore, phishing training for you team should be a key business priority.
People tend to shy away from flagging potential security breaches which could land your organisation in trouble. Hence the a need for phishing training to help them feel comfortable and confident with what to do if a phishing email lands in their inbox.
How Sharp can help?
Our Security Awareness as a Service solution has been packaged to help organisations de-risk, train and educate their teams all year round. We understand that threats are always evolving and the importance of maintaining ongoing cyber security training for your teams.
We aim to equip your teams with insights and tools to effectively recognise and respond to potential threats. Our comprehensive service will help ensure your organisation is protected from cyber attacks and breaches.
As part of our Security Awareness Service, there will be an initial assessment for your team members to complete. This assessment will test your team on their current cyber security knowledge of, Incident Reporting, Internet Use, Social Media, Email Security, Passwords and Authentication, Mobile Devices, and Human Firewalls.
Once completed, this allows us to understand the current knowledge level across your organisation and supports us in crafting tailored cyber security awareness training.
