5 Considerations for Successful Security Awareness Training

If you want to bolster your cybersecurity in 2024, providing effective security awareness training is just as important as deploying the right data protection tools.

Before you decide what security awareness training you’re going to do this year, consider getting feedback from your employees as well as aligning your training with the key projects you expect to be doing over the next 12 months.

Evaluate last year’s training

Find out what your employees liked about the security awareness training they have received in the past – both the positive and the negative. Was it engaging? What content did your employees like or dislike? Did like they like in-person workshops? What about online content such as videos? Understanding what works best will help make any future security awareness training more effective and enjoyable, as well as ensuring it’s effective.

How will you communicate?

Leveraging your employees to bolster your cyber security posture isn’t just about the security awareness training you provide, but also how you engage them on a day-to-day basis about any issues, concerns, or incidents. How effective is email for making sure everyone is on the same page? Are you leveraging channels on your collaboration platforms such as Slack and Microsoft Teams? How do you ensure that remote workers are receiving security-related bulletins?

What issues does your security awareness training need to address?

Broadly speaking, it’s easy to identify which challenges and threats your security awareness training must consider, but have you given thought to the specific issues that the executive team and employees are most concerned about? Were there specific threats in the past year such as phishing or ransomware that weren’t handled adequately? How well is your organization securing remote workers?

How should your projects in 2024 shape your training?

Security awareness training should not only apply to routine business operations, but also for major projects, whether it is customer deliverables or your own strategic digital transformation efforts. New endeavors often require access to data as well as the need for new cloud-based applications, all of which have an impact on your security posture. New customers may have security requirements that may require you to implement new processes and policies that your employees must be made aware of.

Getting new employees up to speed

If you’ve already added new staff or plan to scale up your headcount in 2024, you must gear your security awareness training for newcomers. They may come from an organization with less stringent security policies or conversely, they might be able to bring something to the table that enhances both your training and your security policies. No matter what, onboarding new employees should include security awareness training, and it should specifically address how certain roles engage with sensitive data.

Security awareness training works hand in hand with your cybersecurity and data protection tools – your employees are a critical element in securing your organization. If you’re to improve and expand your security awareness training, a managed services provider with a focus on security can help you develop, deliver, and maintain an effective program.

There are many ways artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning already impact cybersecurity. You can expect that trend to continue in 2024 – both as tools for data protection as well as a threat.

Balancing Cybersecurity Innovation Amid Evolving Threat Landscapes

Even as you implement AI and machine learning into your cybersecurity strategy through the adoption of tools like Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Managed Detection and Response (MDR), so are threat actors. They will continue to update and evolve their own methodologies and tools to compromise their targets by applying AI and machine learning to how they use ransomware, malware and deepfakes.

With small and medium-sized businesses just much at risk as their large enterprise counterparts, SMBs must take advantage of AI and machine learning as mush possible. AI-directed attacks are expected to rise in 2024 in the form of deepfake technologies that make phishing and impersonation more effective, as well as evolving ransomware and malware.

Deepfake social engineering techniques

Deepfake technologies that leverage AI are especially worrisome, as they can create fake content that spurs employees and organizations to work against their best interests. Hackers can use deepfakes to create massive changes with serious financial consequences, including altering stock prices.

Deepfake social engineering techniques will only improve with the use of AI, increasing the likelihood of data breaches through unauthorized access to systems and more authentic looking phishing messages that are more personalized, and hence, more effective.

Countering Cyber Threats and Harnessing Innovation in 2024

If hackers are keen on leveraging AI and machine learning to defeat your cybersecurity, you must be ready to combat them in equal measure – just as AI and machine learning will create new challenges in 2024, they can also help you bolster your cybersecurity. While regulations are being developed to foster ethical use of AI, threat actors are not likely to follow them.

AI will also affect your cyber insurance as your providers will use it to assess your resilience against cyberattacks and adjust your premium payments accordingly. AI presents an opportunity for you to improve your cybersecurity to keep those insurance costs under control.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of doom being predicted around the growing use of AI and machine learning. And while it does pose a risk to your organization and its sensitive data, you can use it to bolster your cybersecurity even as threat actors leverage AI to up the ante. A managed service provider with a focus on security can help you use AI and machine learning to protect your organization as we head into 2024.

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