Cyber training for employees – essential but often overlooked

Businesses across the UK spend millions of pounds each year ensuring their systems are secure and their data is best protected against cyber crime. However, there’s one aspect that can often be overlooked, despite it being the most common route in for hackers: employees themselves.

The role that a company’s employees play in its overall cyber security cannot be understated. Whether it’s keeping systems up to date, or being the first line of defence against phishing attempts, a company workforce can – and in many previous examples, has – been the difference between a security system working or failing.

For this reason, cyber security awareness training is an imperative for all modern businesses, both large and small. By equipping staff members with the crucial knowledge of how to identify potential attacks, and making them cyber security aware (with an understanding of the latest techniques and trends), a business can better ensure its valuable data is protected.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to cyber security training. The best approaches will consider each individual company’s unique risks and challenges, to create an effective defence against attack. It will combine traditional learning with simulations of anticipated data breaches – so that all parties know both what is at stake, and how best to deal with a developing situation.

To those lucky enough not to have fallen victim to a recent hack, this may seem like insurance; a costly exercise that may never need real-world application – but there are enormous benefits even if you never have to call it in (though that itself is becoming increasingly unlikely).

Among the biggest is that companies with good cyber defences are more likely to secure new business, especially when pitching for high-value clients, for whom data protection is a major factor in procurement.

There’s also the culture that good cyber security can foster. With an open approach, businesses are able to not only show to their workforce how important each and every person is to the survival of the business, but also train and develop staff with a hugely transferrable skillset – which could also prove beneficial in their home lives too, in keeping their own personal data safe and secure.

With so many potential benefits on offer, the days of employee training and development being a painfully overlooked part of the cybercrime world are – hopefully – numbered.