Reducing human error with cyber security awareness training

WHAT IS HUMAN ERROR?

Human error is involved in more than 90% of security breaches, with such a high percentage, it can’t just be ignored. As for a cyber security definition, its quite self-explanatory, It concerns employees that cause or allow a security breach to happen by accidental action or absence of doing. In which, the ‘human’ has made an ‘error’ which can jeopardise the company’s cyber security.

REASON BEHIND DATA BREACHES

When looking at the reasons behind data breaches you can bet that at some point, some employee did something that could have otherwise been prevented. The same errors are continuously taken advantage of by hackers, which can more often than not result in either the employee themselves or the company they represent becoming a victim of cyber-crime. Just as a company needs to be prepared for a cyber-attack, every employee needs to be educated on cyber security best practice.

the IMPORTANCE OF CYBER SECURITY AWARENESS TRAINING

The importance behind taking such precautions are plain to see. Hackers are experienced in finding weaknesses in systems and people, it’s their job. They are highly skilled in tricking users and playing on vulnerabilities of the user and the system in which the operate between.

With cyber security, it’s about making the hackers job as difficult as possible with the hope that the hackers will put their efforts elsewhere. Therefore, one of the most effective things you can do to protect your company against cyber-crime is to train your employees on cyber security awareness. Cyber security awareness training is designed to change the learner from the greatest risk to a company into a security asset.

THE FORMULA FOR SUCCESSFUL CYBER SECURITY AWARENESS TRAINING

You need to make the techincal, accessible and place the responsibility of preventing and report cyber-attacks on to the learner. By raising attention to the errors that humans continuously fall in, employees are able to protect, identify, and report cyber threats. You are strengthening the most vulnerable link in the chain, your employees.

Employees need to be engaged, responsive and aware. It’s no longer acceptable to only train the IT staff, all employees need to be knowledgeable on cyber security. If there is even one weak link, you could be in trouble. We have composed a list of the common pitfalls employees continuously fall into further down the article. We would suggest that all these learning points need to be covered in every effective cyber security awareness training solution.

WHY FOCUS ON REDUCING HUMAN ERROR

We focused on reducing the risk human error brings to an organisation. By taking this learner-focused approach we were able to build a course that resonates with the user and their day to day life, whilst still being fun and light-hearted making sure the learner doesn’t lose interest. Which can be a common pitfall with compliance training.

FENTURI’S CYBER SECURITY AWARENESS COURSE

Here are some examples of ways we reduced human error within our digital learning course:

Alongside the examples of choice based questions, gamification and on-screen interactions, here are the learning points that are in our cyber security course. Making sure we provide the learner with the knowledge and the cyber security awareness to keep the organisation safe from human error mistakes. 

It is an extensive list but within the cyber security topic, there’s a lot to learn. Due to the sheer quantity of important information the learner is faced with, we focused on making the course as engaging as possible. This was achieved by building a beautifully designed course that has a light-hearted crime noir style.

This alongside all the unique learning elements such as gamification embedded within the course, we made sure that all the important information will stick. For more insight into the design elements of the course click here.

Alternately you can request a demo of the cyber security awareness training course and turn yourself into a strong link in the chain against cyber attacks.