Cybersecurity threats continue to pose a significant risk to organizations of all sizes, making security awareness training and human risk management an essential component of any comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. With the latest generative AI capabilities cyber criminals are getting better at creating believable phishing emails and messages, making their advances harder to spot than ever before. By educating and nudging employees on the latest threats and best practices and measuring knowledge and behavior, companies can manage human risk and empower their teams to identify and prevent cyberattacks, ultimately reducing the risk of a successful breach.
But with so many cyber security awareness training programs available, how can you choose the best one for your team? Here are 6 key factors to consider when searching for the best security awareness training program for your team.
1. Training Tailored to Your Team’s Needs
It’s important to choose a cyber security training program that is tailored to your industry and the specific threats that your organization may face. According to a recent Gartner Report, “by 2030 all widely adopted cybersecurity control frameworks will focus on measurable behavior change rather than compliance-based training as the critical measure of efficacy for human risk management.” Traditional compliance-based cybersecurity awareness training is nearly obsolete due to the significant role human-measuring risk tools play in the success of modern cybersecurity training. You can measure your organization’s biggest behavioral threats by implementing AwareGO’s Human Risk Assessment.
AwareGO’s Human Risk Assessment was created by behavioral scientists and cybersecurity experts to go wider and deeper than standard questionnaires, quizzes, and phishing simulations. It has unique and interactive scenarios that allow employees to show their skills in a sandbox-like environment. This helps cybersecurity leaders manage the human element of cybersecurity and deliver the right training to the right people.
Results from the Human Risk Assessment gives security leaders actionable insights and identify vulnerabilities within the organization to help create an informed cybersecurity strategy. Once the results are in, security leaders will get suggestions for more relevant, targeted training or nudging based on individual assessment results.
2. Interactive, Engaging and Accessible Training
Employees are more likely to engage with training that is interactive and engaging. The best security awareness training programs use a variety of teaching methods, such as videos, quizzes, and simulations, to keep employees interested and invested in the training. AwareGO’s training offers full access to 100+ original pieces of content with interactive assessment scenarios, high-quality micro-learning videos (no cartoons), quizzes, whitepapers, ebooks, posters, stickers, checklists and more. New content is added to the training programs and the blog every month.
All AwareGO content can be delivered through email, Slack or Teams messages. The platform was built to be able to integrate with other software and is free from legacy issues. AwareGO’s content and Human Risk Assessment can also be integrated into other platforms through Scorm.
3. Automated and Sustainable Training
Security threats are constantly evolving, and the best security awareness training should be ongoing and automated. AwareGO’s own proprietary cloud-based platform (LMS) was built with simplicity and ease of use in mind. It is a dashboard for automated and flexible omnichannel delivery to increase employee engagement. Choosing and delivering assessments or training – even adding your own content or policies – is easy. Once the initial Human Risk Assessment has been done, AwareGO’s platform will automatically suggest additional steps for individualized training and assessment of each employee based on their results.
The training content that is automatically suggested to employees is built on positive reinforcement and nudge theory. Short, targeted and automated messages that provide tips on better security awareness behavior will have a greater impact in the long run, rather than long messages or commandments by email or lectures. Video content is a great way to nudge employees with new training content, and AwareGO’s award-winning short, real-life reminder videos cut through cognitive biases and barriers to security behaviors.
4. Customizable Training
Every organization is unique, and a one-size-fits-all approach to security awareness training has been shown not to be effective. The best security awareness training programs allow for customization, enabling organizations to tailor training to the specific needs and requirements of their teams. With AwareGO’s cybersecurity training program, you can tailor training content to specific company departments based on known threat areas from their Human Risk Assessment.
5. Reporting and Analytics
To track the effectiveness of the training, the best security awareness training programs provide reporting and analytics on employee engagement, completion rates, and performance on simulated attacks. This data can help organizations identify areas where additional training may be needed and demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements and industry standards. AwareGO uses dashboards for cybersecurity training administrators that track progress, completion, and success of every individual and department or team.
6. Industry Certifications
Look for security awareness training programs that are created and owned by leaders with industry certifications, such as the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). AwareGO’s Co-founder, Ragnar Sigurdsson is a CISSP, CEH, and certified ethical hacker. Seeing that traditional training doesn’t work, Ragnar created a new way to train employees on proper security measures.
Choosing the best security awareness training program and human risk management for your team requires careful consideration of several key factors. By selecting a program that matches your specific needs, organizations can empower their employees to identify and prevent cyber threats, ultimately reducing the risk of a successful breach.
AwareGO’s full solution includes human risk management and training to tackle the entire employee cybersecurity lifecycle – assess, train, nudge, test – where cybersecurity and behavioral science work together to change behavior and create a sustainable cybersecurity culture. We help our clients go beyond compliance by transforming human cyber risk data into insights – and insights into informed action – automatically.
We offer a free trial of our security awareness training (no credit card or commitment needed) where you can take a look at all our videos and ready-made programs , with free videos, to find out if our security awareness training and risk assessment fit your needs.