LINEARSTACK
March 23, 2023

Security Awareness

Workforce Security Awareness is an Investment in your business

Education is the most important driving force in any organisation or society. People open to learning become contributors to the cause and inspire others to follow. Cybersecurity security awareness, if delivered in a positive, receptive manner, also attracts people wanting to know more about the benefits of security awareness.

Security awareness training faltering?

A well-structured security awareness program provides employees with tools and knowledge to help deal with ongoing cyber-attacks, phishing emails, and business compromises.

Previously when organisations invested insecurity awareness training, the retention of knowledge and overall lack ofenthusiasm for the subject among the employees ran relatively low.

Cybersecurity awareness is becoming an asset for the organisation.

Why do organisations have security awareness training? For compliance? Absolutely. For cybersecurity insurance governance? Of Course.

Proper security awareness training enables an organisation to mobilize the entire company against dangerous security threats. So then, why is the retention of knowledge and employee engagement low?

Cybersecurity, SecOPs, DevOps, AppDev, and NetSecOps are no longer teams within the organisation buried deep inside a hidden building or in the far right corner of the data center. These critical teams are more visible inside the company than ever before.

Cybersecurity threats, phishing attacks, and personal devices with corporate data continue to get breached. These teams understand the human factor when dealing with cyber attacks. Internal and remote employees still pose the most significant risk to organisations by not following the basics of cybersecurity prevention.

In the past, security engineers, IT directors, and other groups had something to do with cyber; they tended to be secretive and often were introverts in company meetings and functions. People outsidethese groups felt no connection to being told, "change your password." Most employees never understood the cybersecurity landscape or continuous threats against the organisation. Adults in any organisation need to understand the "why."

Why do we need to do this cybersecurity training? The classic security engineer introverts often would not answer, simply told the person to finish the training module on time, and often would not mention the organisation's cybersecurity risks.

Changing the culture of cybersecurity awareness

Once the Chief Information Security Officers(CISO)and Chief Information Officers (CIO) understood the cultural disconnection between regular organisation team members and overly secretive security teams, leveraging awareness training became the critical bridge between the two groups.

Many business goals and operational objectives relied on a successful cybersecurity prevention strategy to stop cyber attacks. Annual cybersecurity risk assessments, deploying next-generation cybersecurity solutions, and enabling advanced security solutions still did not protect the organisation enough. Organisations continue to suffer from cyberattacks if internal users still click on malicious links, reply to phishing emails, or continue to copy data to a thumb drive.

By making "everyone" a member of the cybersecurity security team, employees began to feel more connected with the goal of cybersecurity protection. With team members across the entire organisation becoming active contributors in creating the cybersecurity awareness training program, organisations noticed an increase in knowledge retention across all departments.

Opening up the SecOps visibility Screen

Along with adding the entire organisationto the "security team," organisations also began to expose more about actual cybersecurity attacks against the organisation. By creating more visibility of actual phishing scams, social engineering attacks, and other cybersecurity incidents, more employees understood the importance of security awareness training and how critical their role is in protecting the organisation.

Uniform visibility across SecOps, DevOps, and NetSecOps to the rest of the organisation creates a security culture while driving a more collaborative approach to security awareness program creation.

Security awareness training return of investment

The resulting value to the organisation by having a much more engaging security awareness culture helps reduce the overall risk.

A person working in human resources understands the criticalness of multi-factor authentication to protect employee personal information. A newly hired software engineer understands the importance of using corporate-approved software depositories for source code. Using what they learn, corporate employees learn to identify email phishing attacks or not respond to a social media post from someone they do not know.

With continuous training with a uniform visibility culture, an organisation’s expense of cybersecurity awareness training quickly becomes a return on their investment as an asset.

The role of an MSSP for security awareness training

To stay current with the latest cybersecurity education, organisations will often acquire licenses from a security awareness provider. These providers help create the cybersecurity training content and video and provide some real-world simulations of cyberattacks. Many companies will leverage the providers from several domains, including employee diversity training, cybersecurity, product lifecycle, and legal and compliance content, and integrate these modules into a content management system (CRM). These CRM tools become a centralised knowledge learning depository for the organisation. Employees connect to one CRM for all organisational training content.

Managed security service providers (MSSP)help provide access to content from several security awareness providers to help create a relevant training curriculum to align with the organisation's needs. Many MSSPs also assist with gathering employee feedback and creating quarterly review teams to evaluate the content and overall acceptable better.

Evaluation of Security Awareness effectively.

An MSSP also can perform audits and assessments to validate that the training has reduced risk in the organisation.

●    Did the training help reduce the number of security incidents the SecOps had to respond to?

●    Did the organisation have fewer security breaches and ransomware outbreaks due to the security training?

●    Did the security training help with reducing cyber threats becoming breaches?

Successful cybersecurity strategies rely on security policies being followed by everyone in the organisation. Cybersecurity training is the enabler of the successful adoption of cybersecurity policies.

About LinearStack

Founded in 2013 with a strong focus on world-class cyber security services, LinearStack was built from the ground up in Auckland, New Zealand. Our passion for making information security simple and accessible for all organisations is the fuel that fires our engine.

We’re a growing team of certified CyberDefence Analysts, Threat Hunters, Incident Responders, CTI specialists, Malware analysts, security architectures, and engineers with two geo-redundant operations centres across the globe.

Managed cybersecurity awareness training

Outcome-focused training programs designed to create a security-first culture More than 80% of data breaches result from human error.

Drive behavioral change and equip your team with the skills to prevent, identify and react appropriately to suspicious online activity.

Our security awareness training can be tailored to meet your specific needs and includes controlled phishing simulations and training materials to help employees embrace a security-first approach.

Awareness programs to strengthen your first line of defence

Our cyber security awareness programs help organisations build a security-first culture with outcome-focused, easy-to-absorb awareness content and phishing simulation campaigns.

Customised learning tracks

Training material tailored to the needs of specific user groups, with a particular focus on high-risk roles and users

Phishing simulation campaigns

Customisable phishing simulation exercises to improve vigilance and test employees' ability to detect fraud.

Customisable learning tracks to build a cyber-vigilant workforce

Culture

We’re 100% privately held, grown with a family mindset. When working with clients, we’re well integrated within their teams and act as an extension of their operations. Augmenting existing teams is a transition we manage smoothly, empowering our customers to prioritise cybersecurity strategy while we protect their business from cyber threats 24x7.

We believe maintaining thriving ITsystems and assuring data protection are fundamental needs that all businesses deserve.

Contact Us

Want to know more about what we have to offer? We'd love to hear from you

Get in touch with us today:

Phone: 0800 008 795

Email: info@linearstack.co.nz

Website: https://linearstack.co.nz   

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