Effective Security Awareness and Training Program is Vital for the Organizations Growth

Security awareness program has never been more critical for organizations, as cybercriminals and hackers are blatantly exploding human vulnerabilities. With no employee being immune to security slip-ups, several high-profile incidents resulted from social engineering techniques that successfully deceived employees. The security awareness program is carried out within the organization to increase organizational understanding and practical implementation of security best practices and such a program should be reinforced regularly. Security awareness and training program is a way through which it is ensured that everyone within the organization has apt knowledge about security along with a good sense of responsibility. This program is vital for the organization because it reinforces the fact that security is everyone's responsibility in the organization and not just the security team.

Security awareness and training program is just what the organizations need to tighten their security and privacy strategies. However, different organizations adopt different approaches and philosophies that can be more or less apt depending on their specific circumstances. The best security awareness and training program is designed by organizations keeping in mind their industry, business specifics, and employee demographics, and then a customized program is designed around these features.

The meaning of the terms security and privacy differ across various industries. Undoubtedly, every industry handles critical data and sensitive information but the process and practices may differ for every industry. Thus, organizations need to create security awareness and training programs considering their industry-specific requirements like compliance requirements, as the organization may be legally required to carry out things in a specific way like in the case of PCI or financial industry (APRA) compliance laws. A particular organization may have distinct security and privacy risk, for example, both government organizations and retail businesses require effective cyber security but a government organization will have a different kind of security threat than a private company. Highly digitized businesses will have different security risks than companies whose operations are mainly offline.

Businesses need to implement a security awareness and training programs that address their specific needs and priorities. Businesses need to create security programs depending upon their current cyber security strategy, the issues revealed by the company's risk assessment, the type of confidential information handled by the businesses, and the impact of the security program on the employee workflow. Lastly, the businesses should create a security program that is practiced in the organization and employees carry them out. Businesses while creating security and training program should take into account their individual employee's skills, limitations, and work environment. Most of the time it is seen that employees side-lined these programs due to lack of time, skills, understanding, and needs. A one size fits all training should be avoided in favour of role specific training.

Summary - A security awareness and training program goes a long way to make a company safe and productive. Nevertheless, with each company having its specific needs, these requirements need to be considered while developing a training program. Organizations need to implement best practices and training programs to get the best out of their efforts.