Despite the security sensitization training programs, employees are largely ignorant of crucial security practices. While your organization may invest in webinars and conferences to train the employees about security matters, they feel like the processes involved to achieve security are cumbersome and too much of a burden. What they forget is that they are also at a high risk of data breaches which may even affect their families!
Importance of Security Awareness Training and Education
Your organization’s security committee should incorporate an information security program that will promote security awareness among the employees. The knowledge will help them protect themselves as well the company from rampant ransomware attacks and other brute force related attacks.
While the current technology level has eased business operations, it has brought significant security changes that keep changing as technology evolve. While taking an agile approach to compliance can keep your infrastructure secure, it’s important to factor in your employees. When the employees are knowledgeable about security matters, it boosts the management of security programs on your organization.
Regulations and Standards that Require a Security Awareness Training Policy
For you to get certifications from certain regulations and standard bodies, you’ll require that you implement security awareness techniques in your organization. They include:
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). It requires that all your workers are trained in the health organization’s policies and procedures pertaining to Personal Health Information (PHI).
- The Gram-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) dictates that all your employees have the ability to detect and respond to any case of identity theft such as pretext calling.
- The Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) requires that employees are trained in using information systems, the threats involved, and the appropriate methods to respond to the risks.
- Payment Card Industry Security Data Standard (PCI DSS). This requires that your organization arrange formal training programs for all employees to understand the security systems for protecting cardholder data.
- ISO/IEC 27002. This regulation provides the required guidelines to incorporate employee data security training programs.
- NIST Special Publication 800-53. This standard is utilized by federal agencies to incorporate training programs necessary to equip employees to respond to security threats.
Topics Covered in Awareness Training?
Three topics; Information, Availability, and Confidentiality characterize security awareness meetings. The employees should information as all the data they have on all their records and electronic devices. The protection should entail ensuring that no unauthorized person tampers with the credibility of the information.
After the employees comprehend the meaning of data, they need to know what availability entails. In the security field, this term is used to mean the provision of information, cloud access, or the system to only those individuals who need to use the data to keep the organization running.
Finally, your employees should understand confidentiality. This means that the employees are obliged to restrict information to only authorized individuals. The availability of information should be guarded jealously through the ideal authorization stages before access to data. It is also crucial to avoid sharing private company’s information with other organizations.
What is Customer Data?
Customer data include the public (such as the name) and private information (such as social security number). The address can fall under both depending on the way the client uses the data and the method they use to present it to other parties. All the information that is business sensitive is considered as protected customer data. If such data is shared with any other company, they are obliged to keep it highly confidential.
The training on security awareness teaches your employee to value of access controls. For example, if a sales team member shares the information about a client looking for FedRAMP certification to a competitor, it will hurt the business which may lead to loss of revenue. If potential customers suspect that their private information is not safe, they will decline to work with your organization!
What is Social Engineering?
The training of security awareness should have a human element. The field of social engineering exploits the human weaknesses which could lead to security problems. It teaches the employees that malicious people can take advantage of the human weakness to obtain the data they require! They obtain such information through phishing, eavesdropping, and other methods that exploit human weakness. As such, the social engineering program will equip the students with the skills to review before applying.
The hackers and the phishing experts exploit prevailing fear to get to their target. They study the events that can create fear among people and generate the fear to make them submit crucial information that expose them to a security threat. For example, a hacker is aware that people are worried about making wrong decisions during the filing of taxes since mistakes would lead them to trouble in case IRM audit them. The phishers use the fear around the tax issue to get data from people. They can call or email you informing you that the government noticed an error in your tax returns and will sue you! If not careful, they will manipulate you and get what they want!
Empowering Employees with Security Awareness Training
The training can empower your employees in the following ways:
Control of Passwords
The coders are yet to crack the human minds. As such, the employees can develop complex passwords to secure their data thus making it difficult for an algorithm to break into your account. In the recent past, information security experts have increasingly adopted the use of passphrases as opposed to passwords.
The experts have encouraged businesses to move away from the common numbers, letters, and symbols passwords and instead embrace phrases that the employees can remember without compromising the data security. Also, the employees should apply multifactor authentication which applies biometrics for enhanced security.
Ability to Control Email Security
Your employees should understand that not every email they send will be protected through encryption. As such, sending attachments with sensitive data is risky and they should exercise extreme caution to prevent interception which would lead to leakage of sensitive information.
The training should empower to know the security concerns associated with email and how to avoid them. Since the email can be used for both professional and personal purposes, it is crucial that the organization train the employee to uphold their professional responsibilities and ensure that take care of their personal safety too.
Control of Browsing Practices
The internet is an important tool for the growth of any business. It provides an ideal platform for the employees to research and implements unique skills that set the business apart. However, there are numerous negative attributes of the internet that need to be kept on check since they have the potential to destroy the business image and trust among its clientele. As such, the employees should know that they can only adopt from the internet that which will not cause them security problems. Ensure that the employees know that they can check the email address hidden under the sender’s name to prevent suspicious emails.
Whether you buy a security training program, or you develop your own, the process is crucial in ensuring that your organization maintains data integrity all through its operations. Cybercriminals use negligence in emailing and internet use to phish information that would severely destroy the company’s systems.
