In today’s world, it’s essential to implement security awareness training in the workplace. Without security awareness training, how would your employees know how to stay safe? A lot of companies tend to see security awareness training as an addition to their function, and not a necessity. This factor is largely due to the ‘extreme costs’ associated with a security awareness training platform. By adding a bit of no cost creativity, you can continue to evolve your program and stay ahead of the bad guys.
- Utilize FREE Webinars!
Webinars are the easiest and most digestible form of content to distract from a long day. You can watch a webinar during lunch, on a slower day, or even out of office.
KnowBe4 has an entirely free webinar library with instant replay of some of the most pressing topics in security today. Administrators can easily add webinars to their overall training program in order to add a different flavor and intake of content. KnowBe4’s webinars are hosted by leading industry experts, that offer a more relaxed and relatable way for your employees to learn. Employees can also be encouraged to engage with the library on their own and share outside of the workplace.
- Also, include FREE Blogs!
Any article long-form or short-form are perfect for keeping up to date with the most recent news or best practices in your field. From a cybersecurity perspective, there are several popular media outlets and blogs that you should definitely follow along. Searching for a blog is as easy as searching for specific blogs focused security awareness training.
KnowBe4's blog is intended to keep you informed and aware, while allowing you to stay on top of the latest in security including social engineering, ransomware, and phishing attacks. The blog is organized under the following topics so that you can easily find the topics that interest your audience: Security Awareness, Phishing, Cybercrime, Social Engineering, Ransomware and KnowBe4 general content. Updated daily with new content authored by our Founder/CEO, Stu Sjouwerman, and a host of in-house experts, you will always find what you are looking for. Whether you have your audience register to receive all daily blogs, or you hand pick those most relevant to distribute, this will add a very current stream of useful information.
- Prepare your leadership team.
Providing your leadership team with talking points to help reinforce key learning from content, webinars and blogs is paramount in ensuring the message lives on. Managers can bring light to topics in their daily huddles, weekly team meetings and reinforce through their written communications. This keeps key points top-of-mind and allows for the power of repetition.
- Town Halls and Communications.
When was the last time you hosted a town hall specifically focused on the cyber safety of your employees and company? This is a great time to do just that. Company-wide information sessions not only provide an optimal way to share, introduce or reinforce important content, but also allow for the organization to demonstrate their commitment to keeping the company, and employees, safe. If not an entire town hall, then certainly finds ways to inject security focused content into other large-scale meetings.
- Take care of the family.
The bad guys are not just targeting corporate America…they are trying to find ways to compromise those closest to your employees. Leverage the free resources mentioned above as take-home content for your employees to share with their friends, families and loved ones. Also, consider repurposing family friendly content from the Department of Homeland Security’s STOP.THINK.CONNECT. where the focus is to help all digital citizens stay safe online, or information from Stay Safe Online hosted by the National Cyber Security Alliance where the goal is to help educate and empower our global digital society.
You could also consider hosting a live evening web even for your employees, encouraging them to invite anyone they know. Content topics can be kept simple and short leaving plenty of time for Q&A. This kind of session also promotes community within your organization and demonstrates a sense of caring from company to individual and beyond.
All of these suggestions can be added to a security awareness training program regardless of industry or company size. It’s a matter of finding something that adds value to your overall program and that your employees find useful!
New-school Security Awareness Training is critical to enabling you and your IT staff to connect with users and help them make the right security decisions all of the time. This isn't a one and done deal, continuous training and simulated phishing are both needed to mobilize users as your last line of defense. Request your one-on-one demo of KnowBe4's security awareness training and simulated phishing platform and see how easy it can be!
