Your kids are heading back to school as fall approaches. Is it time for you and your team to continue your studies as well? The best time to learn about cybersecurity was 5 years ago, the next best time is now. In fact, education in this subject should never stop. Here’s why it’s so essential to your business and how you can implement a cybersecurity awareness program sooner rather than later.
Why Is Continued Education in Information Security Awareness So Important?
The importance of ongoing security awareness can’t be understated. It’s essential if you want to keep your employees, bottom line, and overall business safe from outside (and insider) threats. With the right training program, your team can understand the steps needed to prevent attacks and also recognize threats.
And it's not up to just your IT department to stay on top of cybersecurity. All it takes is one weak link in your network to wreak havoc.
By having regular cybersecurity awareness training on topics like social media, password protocols, how to spot phishing attempts, social engineering tactics, and making 2-factor-authentication a company policy, you can better protect your employees, your business, and your client data.
Benefits of Cybersecurity Training
You Meet Compliance Requirements
When handling classified information or sensitive data, you often need to meet compliance regulations. Failing to do so can result in huge fines, loss of customers, legal issues, damage to your reputation, and even, potentially, the loss of your company. HIPAA violations, for example, can cost up to $50,000.
Reduce Downtime
Cyberattacks can seriously hurt your bottom line (check out our downtime calculator to see how you’d be impacted). Some have the capability to lock your employees, customers, and business out of critical services and data. This is what happened with the Colonial Pipeline attack and caused the mass run on gas across the South and Florida. More security awareness will keep downtime low and online time high.
Improve Your Reputation
When companies get hit by cyberattacks, their reputation will often take a dive. Just ask any of the 1,393 organizations that have issued data breach notifications in the first half of 2023. These organizations have collectively reported that 157 million individuals' personal details were exposed. Handling your customers’ data and information properly will help your customers keep confidence in your abilities and services, increasing client retention and, of course, sales.
Why Should You Invest in Security Awareness?
Many businesses already have cybersecurity protocols in place, but it’s up to the IT department to keep everyone up to speed. What about companies that don’t have an IT department? Or the IT department is overwhelmed with regular tasks, and keeping all the employees up to date on security awareness is nearly impossible?
There are avenues available. Investing in information security awareness training with a managed IT services provider is one way to keep your company as secure as possible, while freeing up your IT department for more day-to-day responsibilities. Some benefits include:
Training Can Be Customized for Your Various Teams
You likely have different teams with different tasks in your business. And, at the moment, many businesses are embracing hybrid work. A one-size-fits-all approach for security awareness training may not fit your needs and could create holes in your cybersecurity strategy. Partnering with a dedicated IT solutions team ensures your training classes are meeting the unique needs of your workforce, whether they’re in marketing or customer service, and whether they’re working from home or in the office.
Your Team Can Take Advantage of All Resources
Do you have a variety of different cybersecurity resources and tools on hand? If so, how many of your employees understand how to use them?
Cybersecurity isn’t just about creating secure passwords. The resources, ranging from anti-virus software to monitoring tools, need to be used to their full advantage to ensure your business is getting what you paid for – solid protection with no gaps. Training with a managed services provider will help make sure that your team members understand the software and tools they need to use inside and out.
You Will Increase Employee Satisfaction
Did you know that training often equals higher employee satisfaction? Most of your team members want to learn and advance their careers. Effective information security training will lead to happier team members, increased productivity, and greater employee retention.
What Your Employees Need … Now!
Ready to explore the training programs and strategies that will benefit your employees and company? You need to implement these programs and formats now.
Training Programs for Users and Corporate Policies
The 2 training programs you should be adding to your training procedures are user awareness and corporate policy.
User awareness training for security will allow you to give your employees the knowledge they need to protect themselves, secure data, use cybersecurity resources available to them, and keep your organization safe from attacks. Meanwhile, corporate policy training can be built around your current IT management, policies, and needs, allowing you to develop cybersecurity strategies that fit remote and hybrid work, mobile devices, acceptable internet usage, and more.
A Flexible Approach
As mentioned above, customized training will work better than a one-size-fits-all approach. AGJ Training Services provide businesses like yours the flexibility you need with cybersecurity training. During our consultations, we can help you choose formats and topics that best serve your company, teams, and individual employees.
We also focus on providing:
• Client interaction and engagement
◦ We invite your employees and leaders to participate, ask questions, and bring up real life scenarios.
• Custom and tailored materials
◦ We work with businesses like yours to craft training material that fills the gaps in current information security procedures.
• Ongoing and localized training materials
◦ Your employees will be able to access online materials in the office and from home.
• On-site, instructor-led training
◦ We send an instructor to your location so your team has face-to-face interaction.
• Small but powerful training sessions
◦ Our modules are focused so your employees can interact, engage, and retain as much information as possible.
Why Choose AGJ for Information Security Training?
With in-person services, AGJ Systems can provide information security training at your convenience, along with a number of benefits. A few reasons to go with us:
• We offer customized, tailored training that will help ensure your employees are getting the maximum impact from the program.
• You’ll see a reduction of employee questions sent to your IT department, allowing them to focus on other areas of your business and improving productivity across the board. They will be more confident in their work and in cybersecurity.
• Our training materials include industry and company-specific scenarios that will directly benefit your business. You’ll also be able to access them online and on-site, so your employees can quickly review procedures and policies regarding information security.
• We understand you want to keep costs down and get your employees back to work ASAP. That’s why we offer cost-effective training solutions that serve your business – not a one-size-fits-all approach that doesn’t benefit your employees.
From IT training to managed IT services, we offer a wide variety of resources that will help you keep your business secure and moving forward. It’s not just kids and teens that need to get back in the classroom. Get ahead of bad actors and invest in information security training today. Contact us about any of these solutions and start taking advantage of our training services.
