By raising awareness of the dangers of phishing, businesses can significantly reduce their exposure to risk and prevent security threats. While teaching employees how to recognize phishing attacks is important, it is not enough to just hold a training session. Instead, businesses must put their employees to a test to make sure the awareness training was effective. Read on to learn why you need to engage employees in active phishing prevention training and for how long that training remains effective.
Why You Need to Raise Awareness About Phishing
Phishing is ranked as one of the most dangerous cybersecurity threats because it is the most difficult one to detect. This cyberattack method leverages human error as a gateway to sensitive and confidential data. As a part of a phishing attack, hackers attempt to steal sensitive data by disguising themselves as a reputable individual or a company.
Their goal is to get their hands on financial data, credit card information, passwords, and username details so they can further exploit the user’s assets or reach a larger network. There are many phishing methods that hackers use to trick people into revealing sensitive data. This includes malicious links that lead to fake sites and phishing emails that point the user toward a faulty page.
The reason it is important to raise awareness of phishing threats is that they can lead to serious security breaches within your business. A single mistake made by one employee can cost you thousands of dollars in recovery expenses after a serious security attack. In order to prevent data and financial losses, it is best to regularly train your employees on how to detect phishing schemes and avoid them at all costs.
Train Your Employees Efficiently
One thing about cybersecurity threats is that they are constantly changing and evolving. Hackers are continuously working on finding new ways to steal data without being detected. With that in mind, a one-time phishing awareness training does not seem like a very efficient option.
Instead, you should consider holding awareness training every 6 months to make sure your employees are up to date with the latest changes in the cybersecurity field. One-time training is not a permanent solution since employees are likely to forget about potential risks while working online.
What you can do is provide consistent reminders to raise awareness of phishing risk, as well as try simulating phishing attacks on your employees. Doing so will show you how prepared your employees truly are for such high-risk situations. By putting your workforce to a test, you will learn where they stand in terms of their security knowledge and risk mitigation skills.
Since you cannot guarantee that any of your employees will encounter an actual phishing threat at some point in their career, what you can do is simulate the attack to keep the team alert and ready to react. Most importantly, continue raising awareness about the importance of all security threats, not only phishing and similar online scams.
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