4 min read  | Social engineering

What you should cover in your cybersecurity training for employees

In today’s day and age, cybersecurity audits and sophisticated antivirus software are not enough to ward off the risks of malicious hacking efforts. Here, cybersecurity training for employees is crucial if your company is to truly remain free of these risks.

The question then is, what needs to be covered in these types of training programmes? 

Given that cybersecurity training is a huge part of what we do, here at Triskele Labs, continue reading our post for what you need to include in yourcybersecurity awareness programmes for your employees. 

TRAIN EMPLOYEES TO DETECT PHISHING AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

To provide an effective line of defence against cybersecurity risk, awareness and training on phishing and social engineering are crucial, given how frequently they occur.

These types of attacks are where hackers use scam email addresses and other forms of electronic messaging to appear as legitimate or reputable organisations and individuals and gain access to confidential data or computer systems. 

Social engineering essentially refers to the use of deception to manipulate individuals, compelling them to divulge confidential details, including passwords and credit card information, for fraudulent purposes.

Given that it is very easy for employees to fall for these kinds of attacks if they’re not too careful, training on how to spot these emails and messages is necessary. 

Here, asking your team to properly check a sender’s email address and name if they receive any kind of unusual request, call and verify such requests if they’re for sensitive information, hover over links to see where they redirect, in case they seem and suspicious, among other protective measures are important. 

PASSWORD-SETTING BEST PRACTICES AND TIPS

As you may already know, a considerable component of cybersecurity best practices is based on setting strong passwords. As such, it’s not surprising that password best practices are a common part of cybersecurity training programmes. 

Here, apart from telling employees to set long passwords and use multiple types of characters, other best practices include avoiding the use of complete words (making it harder for hackers to crack passcodes), changing passwords regularly, not using the same password across multiple accounts, and using a secure password manager.

BEST PRACTICES FOR SOCIAL MEDIA AND EMAIL USAGE

The internet is rife with malware that can completely disrupt your operations, damage your hardware, and steal your data.

Because of this, your cybersecurity training needs to inform employees about how they can browse the internet safely. This could include creating awareness on the types of links that are safe to click and those that aren’t, how to understand antivirus alerts, and the dos and don’ts of checking social media accounts on company devices, especially given the dangers of saved passwords on public devices. 

TEST EMPLOYEE AWARENESS AND TRAINING IN A SIMULATED TEST

Cybersecurity training, itself, may not be completely effective without testing how much your employees have learned. This can be done by getting a vendor to conduct a type of cybersecurity attack that tests how well employees contain this risk and respond in these scenarios.

This will help you gauge if your training has been effective or whether your teams require further guidance and skill-building to be prepared for the reality where businesses fall victim to a ransomware attack every 13.275 seconds.

These types of simulated attacks could take the form of phishing or social engineering, given that these are very common in the corporate world.

INVEST IN CYBERSECURITY TRAINING TO DEFEND YOUR BUSINESS AND EMPLOYEES AGAINST CYBER THREATS

By equipping your employees with the latest knowledge and best practices through expert-led cybersecurity training, you no longer need to spend sleepless nights worrying about your business security.

At Triskele Labs, we’re in the business of providing businesses in Australia with cybersecurity training and cutting-edge services to keep the wolves at bayContact ustoday to find out how we can help you shield your operations from malicious hackers and malware; create a future free of risk with comprehensive awareness-raising.