What is cyber awareness?
Cyber awareness refers to the level of awareness and understanding end users have about cybersecurity best practices and the cyber threats that their networks or organizations face everyday. As the volume of cyber threats becomes more rampant and new threats come into focus, what remains consistent is that human error and sophisticated impersonation attacks are behind 90%+ of cyber breaches. By mitigating your organization's risk with an effective cyber awareness program you can make your employees your first line of defense against cyberattacks.
The power of cyber awareness training - a critical component of cyber security
Increasing cyber security awareness among your users will undoubtedly help to prevent more cyber security threats. Email-borne threats have always targeted human beings, duping them into clicking on links, opening attachments or providing passwords and personal information that can be used to penetrate cyber security defenses. It doesn't matter how much you've invested in the latest cyber security tools or the most sophisticated cyber security strategies – if your users can't spot a suspicious link or a fraudulent email, your defenses are likely to be compromised.
More than 90% of cyberattacks today begin with an email, and nearly one in four phishing emails are open by unsuspecting employees. By promoting greater cyber security awareness, you can transform your users from unwitting accomplices into frontline defenders in the war against cyber crime.
Mimecast Awareness Training addresses all of the flaws in traditional training methodology to deliver cyber awareness training that employees love and, more importantly, that gets results.
Increasing cyber awareness: Why Mimecast cyber security awareness training actually works
Cyber security awareness training is usually pretty boring stuff – which also makes it pretty ineffective. That's a big problem for many organizations, since human error plays a role in nearly all security breaches. Theoretically, cyber security awareness training for employees should be able to address this risk. But despite the billions of dollars that organizations have poured into training solutions in recent years, the chance that companies of all sizes will get hacked is greater today than four years ago.
Here's why: when cyber security awareness training can't hold employees' attention, there is little chance it can change behavior. Most awareness training programs aren't designed with education science in mind. Educators know that real learning happens when students are engaged and when the subject matter is broken down into chunks that can be easily digested. Yet most cyber security awareness training is tedious and/or delivered in intensive sessions that consume large portions of an employee's busy day.
We keep it short. Each module is no more than 3 – 5 minutes in length. That means rather than taking the better part of a day to slog through security best practices, employees can accomplish their cyber awareness training on a very welcome break in their day. Each module covers a different topic, from email security awarness training that covers ransomware and phishing to compliance topics like HIPAA and GDPR awareness training. Mimecast offers an effective alternative that actually moves the needle on learning outcomes: massively engaging cyber security awarenesstraining, delivered in short sessions once a month.
Comprehensive topics in cyber security awareness training
Mimecast Awareness Training was developed by leading cyber security experts from the U.S. military, law enforcement and the intelligence community. Each module covers one aspect of cyber security, web security or email security training with new training delivered 12 to 15 times a year to ensure that content remains fresh and relevant.
Current learning modules include topics in:
Phishing: ransomware, CEO fraud, wire transfer fraud, vishing
Passwords: same passwords, strong passwords
Information Protection: stolen laptop, spoken/sensitive behavior, social media, know your audience, privileged user, public Wi-Fi
HIPAA: social media posting, reporting breaches, spoken disclosure, authentication, locked screens
Office Hygiene: use of shredder, physical access-tailgating, clean desk, exposed screen, responsible printing
Data in Motion: personal email, unknown media, my cloud storage, email & inadvertent leaks
GDPR Awareness Training: data usage and rights
Advantages of Mimecast cyber security awareness training
Cyber security training from Mimecast provides tremendous benefits over other approaches:
- It's easy to manage. As an online platform, Mimecast cyber security awareness training can be deployed globally in just a few clicks. Components like phishing testing are amazingly easy to set up and deploy. And results are presented in easy-to-use dashboards, reports, drill downs and integrations.
- Superior content. In addition to being highly entertaining, the content in our awareness programs is developed by industry experts with first-hand experience in addressing the challenges of cyber security.
- Focused remediation. Personalized risk scores let you target individuals and groups with specialized and personalized remediation measures to make your limited training dollars go farther.
- Seamless integration with comprehensive solutions. Mimecast Awareness Training is fully integrated with Mimecast's all-in-one suite of email security, web security and information archiving technology to deliver a single, comprehensive solution for protecting your organization.
FAQs: Understanding cyber awareness training
What is cyber awareness training?
Cyber awareness training educates employees about the wide variety of threats they may encounter or actions they may take that could jeopardize their organization's security. Cyber awareness training helps employees understand what threats look like, how they work and how employees should respond when they encounter a threat.
Why is cyber security awareness training important?
The goal of awareness training is to mitigate the role of human error in causing or enabling security breaches. It's estimated that human error plays a role in more than 90% of major breaches, making cyber security awareness training a critical part of an organization's security posture.
How effective is cyber awareness training?
The effectiveness of cyber awareness training depends on the program. Some programs have proven remarkably ineffective; organizations may see no improvement in their security posture despite thousands of dollars invested in cyber awareness training programs. Mimecast Awareness Training has proven a highly effective alternative, with employee awareness increasing by as much as 400%, thanks to highly engaging training modules delivered in short sessions on an ongoing basis.
How long does cyber awareness training take?
Cyber awareness training programs vary widely in duration. Some are one-off sessions that seek to educate employees about all threats in a single setting. Mimecast Awareness Training offers a different approach – monthly training sessions that last no more than 3 – 5 minutes, to keep employees continually engaged in security topics and to keep security best practices fresh in their minds.
