Awareness is about recognising and understanding what is happening around us and staying alert of possible dangers and risks. Especially with the increasing digitalisation, things are changing, and we are facing new types of risks, such as phishing and fraudulent websites. Awareness training can help strengthen the information and cyber security in your organisation and foster a better understanding of the GDPR. This blog post will discuss what awareness is and how you can use awareness training to train your employees.
Awareness the ability to spot dangers and risks when they pop up. However, to do this we need to know and be aware of the fact that there are risks. In situations of emergencies and dangers, awareness plays an especially crucial role.
Now, for instance, when you are out for a walk or a jog you would probably never cross the street without looking out for cars. We all know that you can get seriously injured when hit, and that’s why we are aware when crossing the street.
But when it comes to cyber security, the internet, and the GDPR not everyone understands the dangerous parts and the consequences of e.g., a phishing e-mail. Therefore, we are not aware when browsing, clicking, and being immersed in digital life. We never cross the street without looking for cars, but we browse the internet all day without worry.
In today’s digital world of work, we are more prone to cyber security threats as we are spending more and more time online. In organisations and companies, employees must be aware of these kinds of risks and know what to do when being faced with them. It could start from having small changes, such as creating strong passwords and knowing how to spot a phishing email. Despite that, if your employees don’t know that health information is considered sensitive personal data, they may also not know that it should be treated differently than normal personal data. Lastly, it is also not enough that the IT department is aware of all this, but everybody in the organisation must be on board.
Everything we see, hear, think, and do affects our awareness. Regardless of whether we are watching our favourite tv show, reading a book, listening to music, having conversations with friends, yes, nearly everything relates to our awareness. Some individuals are aware and can spot dangers and risks in seconds, while others are not aware and might take some time or never spot them. How can we be aware of threats?
Well, we need knowledge about threats before we can be aware of threats. Some people in an organisation might already have it, but it only takes one person to click on a phishing link for it to cause immediate consequences.
For instance, in cases of suspicious emails sent to individuals, it will be the individuals who have a good amaount of awareness who would be able to spot them and protect themselves.
You might ask yourself; can I train the awareness of my employees? The answer: Yes, you can. Awareness training train individuals’ consciousness to be aware of these dangers and risks. It focuses on creating a high level of awareness on a variety of topics and helps individuals become aware of their digital behaviour and how to mitigate threats.
Awareness training can happen in many ways. It can be done with physical workshops, having posters around the office, or through e-learning. They can be done by themselves or they can supplement each other. The most important thing is to get the ideas across and for your team to gain a good understanding of the topics. Hence, it is about spreading knowledge in your organisation.
In another context, we see that online awareness campaigns can be effective in educating the public in other areas. For example. the Australian National Mental Health Commission has introduced an online awareness campaign with the hashtag #InThisTogether to offer Australians mental health and wellbeing tips through Covid-19. You can read more about the effort here. It shows how awareness can be created with simple measures.
When it comes to cyber security and the GDPR awareness is particularly useful when being done on an ongoing basis. It can help change the culture in an organisation, which cannot be done with a single workshop. This effort should be a more continuous process that requires some commitment i.e., by being repeatedly made aware of the importance of certain topics. In that way, we will automatically spot things that may seem odd or suspicious with regards to these topics.
It is difficulty to measure the effect of awareness training but we always try to find was to do this. You can read more about measuring the effect of awareness training here.
When used in an effective way, awareness training can create a culture of change in your team. In our e-book, we discuss how you can implement awareness training. You can download it here for free.
Awareness training is an effective way of creating awareness about cyber security and GDPR in your organisation. Your team has an important role to play with it comes to maintaining strong cyber security.
For instance, 9 out of 10 security breaches are caused by human error. This includes some instances regarding the GDPR. This regulation has exposed many organisations to a great challenge.
Once your team is aware of these aspects, it will have a positive effect on your organisation. The goal isn’t to have everyone become cyber security or GDPR experts, but your team will at least know the basics and be aware of situations in which they should ask for help.
With that in mind, awareness training can be used to create the awareness in your organisation to be better prepared.
As mentioned, awareness is nothing else than the capability to identify threats when they occur. However, before we can be aware of threats, our mind requires knowledge to build up an awareness level. Now, in today’s organisations and companies, cyber security and GDPR related threats are occurring more frequently than ever. Therefore, awareness training can create awareness regarding these threats in your organisation. The training can be done in many ways. It can be done with a traditional approach or with a e-learning. It can also be something in between, as discussed in this blog post here.
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