Cybersecurity Awareness Month takes place every October and highlights the importance of staying safe and secure online and increasing security awareness throughout the workforce.
With the cybersecurity threat landscape rapidly evolving, training and upskilling your teams in cybersecurity to keep alert to new threats and advances should be a vital pillar in strengthening your defence plans. Alongside cyberculture, ongoing cybersecurity training builds robust foundations for a cyber-aware workplace.
TryHackMe, leaders in the cybersecurity training field have compiled helpful tips on promoting cybersecurity awareness in your workplace!
1. Creating a Cyberculture
To promote employee understanding of cybersecurity, a cyberculture must be established.
What is cyberculture? A cyberculture is a shared knowledge, attitude, and set of values towards cybersecurity. Having your workforce understand cybersecurity and the vast need in order to protect businesses and mitigate risks allows you to strengthen your forces and avoid breach.
In addition to creating a cyberculture, creating security champions to instil awareness throughout the organisation and encourages wider teams to take a proactive approach to adopt cybersecurity measures. You can find the right candidates for security champions in your company by seeing those most interested in the field, and most engaged with the training. It’s a good idea to add incentives here and drive security champions into every department, as they will act as encouragers of good behaviour that will in turn, strongly benefit your business.
Employees play an essential role in maintaining security. Not only should they have an awareness of cybersecurity, but they also feel empowered to learn and work within security practices. A cyberculture helps to tick all of these boxes – encourage involvement, encourage questions. Use training to spark this cyberculture and movement.
2. Leaders Promoting Cybersecurity
Senior-level management has a responsibility to display behaviour that is expected from employees – and taking appropriate cybersecurity measures is no exception.
Leaders set standards for the entirety of the workforce and are, therefore, crucial components in helping instil a culture of cybersecurity awareness and promoting cybersecurity measures. The team has to believe in the importance of cyber awareness and actions to obtain buy-in and to better understand the critical risks associated with cyberattacks.
To encourage buy-in, add interactive stories to training. What are the repercussions of attacks? How can employees, businesses, and user groups be affected? TryHackMe has training labs and resources covering all of these possibilities, which can pose as fantastic resources to leverage in your cybersecurity awareness month.
3. Introduce Cyber Policies
To effectively raise cybersecurity awareness, cybersecurity rules and processes must be implemented with a cybersecurity policy. This should clearly outline employees’ obligations and the acceptable norms of conduct, including usage of the internet, managing passwords, using multi-factor authentication, distributing emails, accessing work applications, and social media policies.
By defining and promoting best practices within a cyber policy, businesses can raise cybersecurity awareness. Have your teams complete a totally anonymous survey – how many of your passwords are the same? Spot the phishing email, log where you share your details. Create a chart of how everyone behaves in their own lives with cyber to get them intrigued in your training.
4. Realistic Simulations
Carrying out realistic simulations is a highly effective way to test an organisation’s defences and how internal teams respond to these attempts.
An example includes a realistic phishing scam simulation whereby employees are tested on their vigilance and response to this attempt. Employees that fall victim to the simulated phishing attack will benefit from further cybersecurity awareness training.
TryHackMe has hands-on, real-world training labs that simulate these real attacks to teach cybersecurity in action. Set your teams these labs to do throughout cybersecurity awareness month, and monitor the results through the management dashboard.
5. Training Teams
Continuous cybersecurity awareness training and upskilling are essential to fostering a cyberculture at work. They are valuable in equipping teams with the knowledge and abilities to prevent threats and lessen their effects.
Giving your employees cybersecurity training will equip them with the knowledge and skills to recognise typical risks they are likely to encounter and what to look out for.
TryHackMe upskills teams, equips them with the knowledge of techniques and tools to prevent cyberattacks, and can support the development of a cyberculture.
The gamified training labs and pathways address high-level offensive and defensive content and help security personnel to keep on top of emerging threats and advancements in the field. They also provide a wealth of training for all levels, including beginners just starting out in cybersecurity.
Ongoing skill development can support cybersecurity teams to stay on top of emerging threats and advances to keep up with the industry’s rapid evolution. The ideal strategy for cybersecurity teams is to take a proactive stance through education and awareness, which are essential in removing weaknesses for non-technical personnel and significantly decreasing the possibility of a breach.
Why get involved in awareness months?
Awareness months can bring a huge benefit in engaging your audience on a specific topic. Having a drive rather than a consistent steam can really help people buy in to your ideas. One significant push can be a brilliant way to introduce the topic, whilst leveraging intermittent ongoing training and champions of your topic to hone in on its importance in the future.
Cybersecurity awareness month was first coined back in 2004 and is now a yearly occurrence throughout the month of October. Companies all over the globe get involved in launching training and initiatives across their businesses, which sees vast benefits to teams’ skill building and the security strength of companies.
We recommend a blend of interactive training labs, presentations, and involvement. Some companies like to pique the interest of employees by simulating a phishing attack within the company. How many people fell for it? How many people reported it? We don’t need to name names, but seeing how people react before training can highlight the importance and drive. However you take it, jumping on the force of the month is sure to see benefits in your business.
Get started today and get your company involved in the safety and security of your company.
