3 Simple Steps to Keep Employees Current on Cybersecurity

Best methods for bringing employees up to speed on best practices

Worried that your business might fall victim to a phishing scam, a malicious link, or ransomware? It’s a reasonable fear given the rise of cyberattacks over the past decade. What’s worse is that despite the best efforts of brilliant minds, the attacks keep coming and they’re coming from ever-more-sophisticated sources.

That’s why your employees are such an important part of your cybersecurity strategy. It doesn’t matter how thorough your firewalls and monitoring software are, it means little if your employees haven’t been trained to recognize threats when they appear.

If you want to protect your business from cyber threats, it’s up to you to make sure your employees have the proper training. Here are a few ideas to get you well on your way to a secure business information network.

Educating Employees on Cybersecurity Policies

Starting with a clear set of policies should be the first step you take. If employees have guidelines to refer to and follow at the very beginning, you’re more likely to be able to stop bad habits before they start. Ideally, it should be a major portion of any employee orientation and as part of an orientation packet.

Give them a copy of the policies in writing their first day on the job.

The first policy outlined for new employees should be your password policy. Include such requirements as using at least one number, one symbol, and one capital letter. You could even go so far as to require that the capital letter not be the first letter of the password, nor the number or symbol be the last. Encourage your employees to create passwords that break obvious expectations.

In addition, remind your employees to not write their password down and to change their password every three to six months.

A simple password policy can go a long way in protecting your network. In the end, set policies give your employees the guidance they need to stay well within cybersecurity best-practices.

Make Use of Interoffice Messaging and Emails

When new cyber threats rear their ugly heads, you need to get the word out to your employees sooner than later. Forewarned is forearmed, and if they come across the latest threat, they’ll be less likely to be caught off guard.

The simplest, quickest way to inform employees of new threats is to send out a quick company-wide text notification or email. These messages or emails don’t have to be particularly involved. A simple link to an article outlining the latest threats should be sufficient. The point is to bring as many people in your organization up to speed as possible without having to make it a day-long chore.

You don’t necessarily have to do it yourself. An office manager or IT team member can be given the responsibility of sending out the company-wide messages. Assign them the responsibility of checking cybersecurity news every week or two and make sure that employees know as part of their initial orientation to always check emails from these employees.

Conduct Regularly Scheduled Training

Handouts at orientation and some emails or text messages here and there aren’t enough by themselves. While they’re both effective tips, you should take things a step further and establish a system of regularly scheduled training sessions to keep staff up to speed on the latest cybersecurity developments both inside and outside of the company. This will also impress upon your employees exactly how serious you take cybersecurity as a business practice.

These sessions don’t have to be long. Every three months, a 30-minute to an hour-long session should be sufficient to cover a quick rundown on current cybersecurity policies and practices along with mention of the latest threats to be on the lookout for. That leaves plenty of time to cover an additional topic at each session such as the importance of software patching, what a phishing email looks like, or what to do when you suspect a cyberattack has occurred and you fear that business or customer data has been compromised.

When all is said and done, the greater the emphasis you place on caring about cybersecurity, the more your employees will pick up on that and do their part in keeping your business and customer data safe. And if all else fails, simply remind them that a serious enough data breach could result in a significant enough loss of business that it may affect your ability to stay operative.

When it comes to cybersecurity, maintaining best practices is in everyone’s best interest.

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