Good training has proved to be the bedrock of productive, engaged employees. And engaged doesn't mean busy fulfilling their set of responsibilities only. It means having an awareness of the current protocols and the ability to follow directives. Without training, employees have a margin of making costly mistakes, especially when you are in the realm of security. Information security training has been around for a decade now. But in 2019, it has become more important than ever. With the threats growing at an immense speed, it is high time organizations consider providing security training to their employees, which further allows organizations to ensure compliance, mitigate risk, and influence behavior. And that's not all. There are countless other benefits of investing in security awareness training in your company, especially now, and that's all that we will be discussing here.
Keeping the evolution of information security training in mind, it's no surprise that the protocols and regulations have become more complex than ever. The main reason behind this is the sheer volume of data produced on a daily basis. According to reports, the data collection estimated in a day crosses 2.5 quintillion bytes. However, this also means there's a growth in the number of hackers, who are adopting a more sophisticated approach to trespass the security walls of an organization. This is where data security training and awareness can play a major role.
Data Security Training Yields Fantastic Benefits
There's no doubt that training and awareness in the information security realm yield benefits. We have compiled the top reasons why companies must reconsider investing more in information security training this year.
Focused Culture
When you choose a topic to offer training to your teams, it is communicating that the subject is important. If you are investing your time and resources on an area, it clearly indicates that the area is of utmost importance. This naturally transits to your employees and helps you establish a focused culture within the organization. Offering regular training can also help with instilling better habits. Employees feel more confident and responsible contributors to the organization. Reinforcing data security training is a great way to ensure the culture stays focused.
Empowering Human Resource
Data interaction can be empowering for the employees. They feel more confident following the security protocols, which means there's less chance of accidents. Let's not forget that human error has been a major cause of attacks and breaches lately. In fact, research showed how maximum breaches in the year 2015 were caused by human error. Security awareness and training is the ultimate solution to reduce this risk. The training covers how the company data assets need to be protected with the help of the best technology and what security steps need to be taken in case of a breach.
Asset Protection
A security breach can cause a major hit to the company's finances as well as its reputation. In 2017, the average cost of data breach a company suffers was estimated to $3.6m according to the IBM 2017 Cost of Data Breach report. This is why the smart allocation of resources is essential. For organizations that prefer investing in training, can successfully keep these massive and unexpected costs at bay.
Prevention of Downtime
It is also a type of cost-cutting. When a company experiences downtime, it suffers the loss of finances. In case of an incident or a breach, it can take quite a considerable amount of time to repair and investigate through. This precious time is lost for your staff, that should be devoted to getting your systems running again in no time. However, since everything's at a halt, it can wreck your deadlines and workflows. Downtime, even if it is just a few hours can lead to disruption.
Improved Adoption of Policies
It isn't easy to convince your employees to follow security practices by simply reading the policies. Training is the surefire way to encourage your teams to adopt. They have a better understanding of risks and the ways to prevent them when provided with training. Organizations can deliver workforce-wide awareness and a great sense of adoption with more training. This in return enhances security across the organization.
Risk Data Collection
With training, an organization can bring more awareness to its employees for security risks. Employees are a great source of insight for organization risk data. The key is to find out more about the types of risks employees are facing. This will help you shape up your security strategy. The best way to facilitate this knowledge is to train your employees. For instance, to understand how to prevent one, they need to know what a phishing email looks like. This way they will have a more proactive approach about dealing with the matter with the security department instead of just deleting it or opening the email.
Conclusion
By providing official training on security, an organization can keep all of its different locations and departments follow the same information security principles. It's important to keep security cohesive across the operations and to keep everyone on the same page. Training puts an end to guesswork. There are proper strategies, methods, and knowledge that helps you take your next step. To reduce risk, it is crucial to keep all involved parties on the same line. Offering information security training in 2019 has become more critical than ever. For organizations that want to thrive, investing in training shouldn't be an option; it should be a part of the deal.
However, investing in training doesn't have to break a bank. You can look for affordable yet reliable options and stay on top of your game. To learn about your available options, get in touch with us today. Have any further questions? Ask our experts and get the answers right away.