IT Security Awareness Training
Your employees aren’t your first line of defense in your security protocol – but they may be the most important line of defense. With Security Awareness Training (SAT) from QualityIP, you can train and educate your employees to recognize IT security threats and take swift action to protect your company.
IT security awareness training is a critical pillar of your organization’s entire IT infrastructure. Without proper employee education and training, your business will be vulnerable to cyberattacks as hackers and other malicious actors actively target untrained users as potential points of entry. QualityIP’s training programs are designed to empower your entire team with the skills and knowledge they need to recognize threats, avoid common pitfalls and reinforce your organization’s security protocols. By eliminating human error as a “soft spot” vulnerability, you can strengthen your defense strategy, reduce the risk of a security breach and ensure your employees become an active line of defense against ever-evolving cyber threats.
QualityIP is your security training partner.
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What is Security Awareness Training?
IT security training employs a combination of methods to engage employees and teach them about security threats they may or may not be aware of. The first step of training is employee education, where we teach your employees what the threats are and how they spot bad actors.
Security training also instructs employees on the proper use of software and hardware as they relate to security matters. It teaches them the actions to take when they encounter security breaches or threats. Finally, it reinforces why these actions and procedures are necessary for the safety and security of the entire organization, including staff and customers.
A robust IT security awareness training program is typically comprised of several different training components, including experiential learning opportunities, review of real-life situations, and policy awareness training. Security training isn’t just a one-time thing – it’s important to review training from time to time and refresh the team when new threats arise.
Do You Need a Security Awareness Program?
The short answer is yes. Security training is critical to the success of a cyber protection program by showing users how to spot a phishing attack and what signs they should look out for. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) often lack employee training programs like SAT, making them an appealing target for hackers. Information technology security awareness training is well worth the cost if it prevents even one security breach.
In addition to the safeguards QualityIP can implement through our Managed IT Services, we offer a robust SAT program for your staff. This program is designed to educate your employees about the most common ways in which hackers try to exploit people to gain access to your sensitive data and accounts. Using a combination of real-life examples and role-playing scenarios, we are able to help employees learn how to spot phishing emails or other hacking attempts, and then know what to do next.
Security Training Facts:
95%
of all breaches occur because of human error.
71%
of all breaches happen to small businesses.
60%
of smaller businesses fail after a data breach.
IT Security Training and Testing Process
Ongoing security training and testing will help employees to improve their scores and strengthen their security awareness competency. Our recommendations are simple:
Initial Course: he initial course takes about an hour and provides a baseline of security awareness. Foundational coursework ensures that employees receive consistent security education going forward. This is the education portion of the training where we get everyone on the same page and make sure they have some background knowledge about cyber threats.
Weekly Micro-Training: These “small-bite” training components highlight current threats and keep cybersecurity top of mind. The micro-training and quizzes take less than five minutes a week to complete. By keeping the training sessions short and simple, employees are encouraged to complete them and information is easily retained.
Newsletter Updates: Each month, we email a security newsletter to your employees, to keep them updated on current events in the cybersecurity industry. This serves two purposes: to update employees on new threats and to keep cybersecurity at the forefront of their minds.
Simulated Phishing Testing: We test employee retention of the material with periodic mock phishing campaigns, evaluating the effectiveness of their training and identifying weaknesses.
Ongoing Dark Web Assessment: We search the dark web for compromised employee email accounts by external breaches. Employees have the option to check personal email accounts for exposure on the dark web as well.
Security Training Program Components
An employee security awareness training program from QualityIP includes the following components:
- SAT Portal access for each employee
- SAT Management Portal for managers and IT
- Dark Web Assessment
- Employee Vulnerability Assessment
- Award-winning support from QualityIP
- SAT policy creation and implementation
- Test phishing email setup and deployment
- SAT user onboarding and offboarding
Cybersecurity Training Assessments
Two important evaluations help us assess and identify key areas of security awareness: phishing material availability on the dark web and employee vulnerability. We use these assessments to judge how well training is working for your employees and to adjust future trainings to their needs.
Dark Web Assessment
The dark web is a system of websites visible through networks using hidden IP addresses. Through the dark web, hackers collect, buy, and sell personally identifiable information.
Criminals use this data to phish and scam your employees and even gain access to your organization. There are many ways criminals use the information found on the dark web to gain access to your organization.
Through our cybersecurity awareness training program, you and your employees discover whether emails from your company domain are available on the dark web. The report also indicates the external breach that compromised the account.
We then provide you with the steps you can take to minimize your risk from the exposed email accounts.
Employee Vulnerability Assessment
Next, we perform an Employee Vulnerability Assessment (EVA) to help you determine which employees are at the most significant risk from phishing attempts. The EVA scores each employee between 0 and 800. The higher their score, the better equipped they are to meet the threat that hackers pose to them. You can use the cyber awareness scores to decide which employees need additional training and which employees should be given more or less access to sensitive data.
An anonymous leaderboard adds friendly competition among your staff. The cyber security awareness training scores are also available to the IT administrator and can be used in determining user rights and network access, further protecting your information technology.
Technology alone is not enough for thorough protection.
Your employees are the next line of defense in a robust security system, and we help equip them for the job.
Working together, we create a layered security approach to reduce your risk of a data breach, educating them about phishing, ransomware, and other risks to your business data.