3 simple ways to train your staff on cybersecurity best-practices
You can’t expect employees to spot phishing emails if they don’t understand how phishing emails work. And you can’t expect employees to avoid malicious advertisements if they don’t know what to look for.
In fact, you can’t expect much of anything out of employees if you haven’t trained them on cybersecurity best-practices.
If you really want your business to avoid cyber threats, then you need to provide your employees with the proper training to do so. Here are a few ideas to help you out.
Policies
First and foremost, it’s always a good idea to start things off with a set of policies. If your employees have actual guidelines to follow, then they have less room to wander off into cybersecurity darkness.
For example, a policy can help employees create much stronger passwords. Within this password policy, there can be stipulations such as: use at least one number, one capital letter, and one symbol, do not write your password down, and change your password every six months. It can even provide employees with a list of helpful examples and suggestions.
Something as simple as a password policy can do a lot to protect your network. Ultimately, policies will give your employees the guidelines they need to stay well within cybersecurity best-practices.
Interoffice Emails
When a new cyber threat pops up, you need your employees to know about it. This way, if they happen to come into contact with it, they won’t be caught off guard.
A simple way to inform employees of new threats is to send out a quick email. These emails don’t have to be anything very involved. In fact, it can even be something as simple as a link to an article explaining the new threat.
However, if you want to make sure these new threats don’t slip through the cracks, you can hold the receptionist, office manager, or another employee responsible for sending out emails. Give them 10-15 minutes of research time once or twice a month, and then make it a requirement for all other employees to open emails from this staff member.
Quarterly Training
An email here and there simply won’t cut it in the grand scheme of things. Realistically, you need to take things a step further, and quarterly training is a perfect way to accomplish this.
Once a quarter, take some time (anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour) to run through cybersecurity best-practices with your staff. Teach your employees things like what a virus is, what a phishing email looks like, and why updates and patches are important to the overall security of your network. Provide real-life examples, throw out some statistics, and run through hands-on situations.
At the end of the day, the more serious you are with keeping your staff up-to-date with cybersecurity best-practices, the more likely it is that your company will avoid cyber threats altogether. If you’d like some more information on how to handle cybersecurity training, shoot us a message today. We’d love to chat.
