5 Trends to Consider for Effective Security Training
Here are five trends impacting what corporate security training will look like in the near future
When determining why cybersecurity incidents happen, many times it is largely due to inappropriate use of IT resources by employees. A 2019 study found that half of the companies (52% enterprise, 50% SMBs) faced a data breach for this very reason, meaning that companies experienced cyberattacks due to misuse of IT resources as often as their devices being infected with malicious software.
This highlights that businesses need to explain to their employees how to more proactively detect malicious activity and ensure they know how to react appropriately. The best way to do so is to offer employees a security awareness training program that is designed to teach—and, more importantly, retain—essential cybersecurity hygiene.
To make sure training delivers the desired results, courses should meet modern learners’ requirements and the current trends in corporate education. Numerous factors have contributed to the evolution of security awareness training, be it the development of new technologies or changes in corporate culture. This article will highlight five trends that determine what corporate cybersecurity education will look like following these educational guidelines.
Training will include tips for online browsing during spare time
Organizations have long been exploring the opportunities of remote working, and the coronavirus pandemic has helped to hasten this process. Some companies have decided to allow staff to work remotely even after the COVID-19 lockdown measures are over. Soon, many people will find that their living room couch will become their common workplace rather than an office desk and chair. However, this blurs the boundaries between work and personal life.
It will become necessary for employees to know how to behave securely in general, not just specifically at work. Also, security awareness courses should cover the use of personal devices and accounts for work purposes and explain how personal and business resources can be interconnected.
Course duration and required cybersecurity skills will be regulated
Today, many governments and industry requirements make it necessary for organizations to have security awareness training in place; however, most regulators don’t enforce a specific course format or duration.
In practice, businesses do what they can to fulfill these requirements and often implement any training available to say they are compliant, but such training actually has little substance. The statistics above show that this approach doesn’t bring the required results. That’s why regulations in industries where cyberattacks are more critical to business, such as health care, will become more detailed and enforced. Because of this, companies will have to reconsider their approach to how training is carried out. Employees, in turn, will change their perception of training from being a mere formality to a beneficial and valued way to gain the skills required for the job market.
New cyberattack scenarios are coming, so courses will be updated
Cybercriminals always develop more sophisticated ways to conduct their attacks, so future cybersecurity courses will need to be adaptive to include topics and recommendations for cyber incidents that have yet to occur.
For now, effective training should not only make people remember a number of certain rules, but also develop vigilance and pattern recognition skills. As a result, when employees face a new threat, they will be able to recognize that something is wrong and apply the rule to this specific situation.
Online training courses will resemble corporate education
Before the COVID-19 quarantine, post-graduate learning was considered an activity done in people’s free time. Now, with an abundance of downtime on their hands, many people are taking online courses; as a result, many online learning platforms have seen an increase in registrations. This highlights the tendency that people want to engage with life-long learning and gaining new knowledge even after they have graduated from school or university.
How will it affect corporate learning and development and security awareness training in particular? People who regularly attend courses and see the different approaches to education will likely have more specific requirements for corporate training. To fulfill these requirements, security awareness courses will change both in terms of content by tailoring courses for users based on learning objectives and form of delivery by using modernized learning techniques.
Security awareness training will be more personalized
The amount of information produced and consumed by people is growing; as such, security awareness training will become more tailored. These courses will be tailored to take into account not just the skills and rules that are relevant and new for a role, but also a particular employee’s level of knowledge, pace of learning and individual learning preferences. This will ensure employees are not burdened with irrelevant information and can instead spend more time focusing on the skills they would like to learn or expand upon.
