Security Awareness Programme

The security and protection of digital assets has traditionally been the responsibility of the IT organisation, but with high profile security breaches becoming more common and more severe, this is no longer the case.

The root cause of many incidents is human error from outside of the IT department, and the subject is now considered to be a wider business responsibility that is discussed at board level.

Identifying the Major
Business Risks for 2020

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For the first time, businesses are placing Cyber Security as one of their highest corporate risks, and leaders are looking to encourage good security behaviours throughout the organisation from the top down.

No longer can we rely on our users’ common sense to keep the organisation secure, instead we need to establish a cultural change in our workforce through effective education and awareness.

Security awareness training has become one of the common tools deployed in this cultural change, but delivering annual or ad-hoc training as a tick box exercise is ineffective in reducing information security risks on its own. Through an all-encompassing security awareness programme, it is possible to introduce real change in how our employees think, act, and perform in their roles within the organisation. It encourages everybody to care and take responsibility.

Features and benefits of a successful security awareness programme:

Encourages workforce to care by developing a change in behaviour and mindset.

Improves an organisation’s digital resilience by reducing potential for human error.

Increased morale and commitment towards information security by making it part of the organisation’s culture.

Empowers users to feel confident in their choices and offers second opinion reassurance through reporting

Encourages executive sponsorship to support the businesses objectives, whilst offering employee recognition for demonstrated behaviours.

Ability to measure and show improvements in awareness and effectiveness of programme.

What a complete awareness programme should include

Launch

Communicate the importance of cyber awareness and behaviours to the workforce by promoting the programme with an executive top down approach, and champion ownership across all areas of the business (not just IT).

Relevant

Inspire the workforce to care about protecting the organisation through recognition and reward schemes.

E-Learning

Deliver regular cyber awareness training through engaging and digestible video content on relevant threats and best practice.

Remind

Include reminders of the threats, and the importance to be vigilant, in everyday workspaces with impactful posters, newsletters, and screen savers that are refreshed regularly.

Measure

Conduct Phishing simulations with relevant content and threats, measuring current awareness state and creating a benchmark for improvement. Produce progress reports for stakeholders.

Report

Provide a simple facility to report malicious email threats to IT team, which is linked to the reward scheme.

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Get Started with your Security Awareness Programme

Phishing / Simulation & Awareness Assessment

Accelerate Technologies can run a controlled phishing simulation on your organisation using industry leading technology to test and quantify the awareness of your workforce.

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