Employee Cybersecurity Awareness Training Resources

The term “cybersecurity” refers to measures that protect individuals and organizations from attacks on their digital tools, data and financial assets — and more companies are training their employees on how it works and why it’s important.

A 2023 report from research and publishing company Cybersecurity Ventures valued the global cybersecurity awareness training market at $5.6 billion. The report projected the market’s value to jump to more than $10 billion by 2027.

Driving this rapid growth are the increasing threats of cybersecurity attacks and the financial damage they can cause. IBM reported on 550 organizations globally that experienced data breaches in 2023. Among them, each data compromise cost an average of $4.5 million, a 15 percent increase over 2020.

By exploring what cybersecurity involves and how it works, employers, business owners and employees can protect their organizations and their data from cybercriminals. Employee cybersecurity awareness training helps companies ensure that they don’t suffer the millions of dollars in damage that often result from these attacks.

What’s Employee Cybersecurity Awareness Training?

The term “employee cybersecurity awareness training” refers to actions that teach workers about the threats that they and their employers face from cybercriminals. These threats can leave an organization open to cyberattacks: the efforts to control or access data or systems in a computer network. The following are examples of cyberattacks:

• Malware: A malicious software, or malware, attack appears in the form of a legitimate email attachment or program, but it contains viruses that can harm an entire computer network.
• Phishing: Victims of phishing receive fraudulent emails from trusted companies, with individuals hacking — or gaining unauthorized access — into those companies’ systems to send the malicious messages.
• Distributed Denial of Service Attacks: A DDoS-compromised computer server can interrupt a user’s experience with a network or website by launching disruptions ranging from pop-ups to site outages.
• Identity-Based Attacks: About 80 percent of network breaches fraudulently use legitimate identification to gain access, with a cybercriminal posing as an authorized user to collect data, cybersecurity company CrowdStrike reported in 2023.
• Ransomware: A type of malware, ransomware is a form of cyberattack that threatens a network’s user by destroying or denying access to important data unless that individual pays a ransom.

Employee cybersecurity awareness training also focuses on steps that companies and their employees can take to prevent cyberattacks like these — and how to respond if they occur.

Steps in Employee Cybersecurity Awareness Training

Informing employees, employers and business owners about cybersecurity — and their role in it — requires planning, implementation, and frequent reassessment and retooling. The steps in employee cybersecurity awareness training include the following:

1. Understand the risks. Identify ways that an organization and its employees can be vulnerable to a cyberattack.
2. Gain support. Get buy-in for the training from business owners and other corporate leaders, who’ll guide the work of those leading the effort.
3. Establish goals. Consider what the company wants to achieve with this training.
4. Create a plan. Determine how those responsible for the training will manage the process, from introducing employees to the training through evaluating its results.
5. Enact the plan. Alert employees to upcoming training, and lead them through the instruction.
6. Track progress. Ensure that the appropriate employees participate in the program, and evaluate the impact of that instruction.
7. Reinforce messages. Build on the training through follow-up education as needed.
8. Revise the plan. Monitor employee and employer compliance, and make necessary adjustments to the training.

Resources: What Employee Cybersecurity Awareness Training Includes

Resources are available for learning valuable details about what employee cybersecurity awareness training includes and how companies typically conduct it. The following articles are among the sources of information about the practice:

• Abacus, What Should Cybersecurity Awareness Training Include: This resource notes the main topics that cybersecurity awareness training typically covers, such as password security and restricting access.
• Expert Insights, “What Is Security Awareness Training and Why Is It Important?”: This resource explores three key components of cybersecurity awareness training and what each of them includes.
• Forbes, “Cybersecurity Awareness: What It Is and How to Start”: This resource examines the concept of cybersecurity awareness and notes the value of continued vigilance in protecting data.
• Prey, “How to Train Employees on Cyber Security”: This resource offers 10 tips for conducting successful employee cybersecurity awareness training and explains the value of this instruction.
• SymQuest, “8 Steps to Implement a Cybersecurity Awareness Training Program”: This resource lists and explains the process of planning and implementing the employee cybersecurity awareness training process, from leadership buy-in to post-training monitoring.
• TechTarget, “How to Create a Cybersecurity Awareness Training Program”: This resource outlines various cybersecurity threats as well as topics to include in training, including phishing prevention.

Why Is Employee Cybersecurity Awareness Training Important?

Employee cybersecurity awareness training can help protect against the $4.5 million loss, on average, that results from each corporate data breach. However, that protection isn’t the only benefit of this instruction.

The training provides a host of other benefits, many of which also contribute to protecting against financial loss. Below are some of the reasons for offering this instruction.

Addressing a Growing Threat

A 2023 Apple-supported report showed that the threat of a corporate cyberattack reached historic levels. In just the first nine months of that year, data breaches among U.S. organizations had increased by 20 percent compared with all of 2022. Remote work is one factor that has contributed to this trend, with employees often relying on technology that isn’t corporate sanctioned to do their jobs.

Safeguarding Corporate Data

Cyberattacks can lead to the theft of corporate data, including data pertaining to customers. In 2021, for example, hackers began stealing source code from internet domain registry GoDaddy; the hackers ultimately accessed the credentials of customers and manipulated their websites.

British cyber risk solutions provider IT Governance tracked the number of records that unauthorized users accessed during 2023. That year, an estimated 8.2 billion records worldwide fell into the wrong hands because of cyberattacks.

Mitigating Financial Loss

Between employee hours spent resuming regular operations and, in some cases, financial payouts to cybercriminals or customers, cybercrime can leave a company with a host of unforeseen financial obligations. One example is the genetic testing service 23andMe, which faced potentially costly class action lawsuits following a 2023 cyberattack that provided unauthorized access to data from 6.9 million people.

Encouraging Consumer Confidence

Data breaches can be damaging to an organization’s reputation. Employee cybersecurity awareness training can help improve the perception that customers and partners have in the organization. Research from electrical systems company Thales in 2022, for example, found that 21 percent of consumers around the world indicated that they’d stopped working with a company after it was the victim of a data breach.

Protecting Against Downtime

When a business becomes the victim of a cyberattack, it can lead to downtime for improperly functioning systems, hindering those who rely on them to do their jobs. In 2023, website monitoring service SolarWinds Pingdom noted that the average cost of corporate downtime across all industries was as much as $9,000 per minute.

Ensuring Regulatory Compliance

The U.S. government mandates that companies strictly protect personal data, and many industries also have their own regulations governing cybersecurity. Failure to adhere to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), for example, could lead to fines ranging from $100 to $50,000.

Resources: Employee Cybersecurity Awareness Training Materials

Various resources, some free, can inform employee cybersecurity awareness training efforts. The following are some helpful tools for employers, business owners and employees looking to implement this training:

• Center for Internet Security, The 18 CIS Critical Security Controls: This resource presents a cybersecurity program that focuses on risks, prevention and response to threats, such as working from home and cloud computing.
• Cybernews, “Cybersecurity Awareness Solutions to Prevent Potential Attacks”: This resource lists and reviews programs for paid cybersecurity awareness training, including some tools with options for free versions.
• Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, CISA Cybersecurity Awareness Program: This resource offers various resources to educate the public about cybersecurity threats and how to address them, with links on topics such as Cybersecurity Awareness Month and small business protection.
• Federal Emergency Management Agency, Workplace Security Awareness: This resource provides a one-hour course on cybersecurity risk management and response.
• Federal Trade Commission, Cybersecurity for Small Business: This resource includes tips and overviews related to a host of cybersecurity threats and links to quizzes and videos.
• National Institute of Standards and Technology, Free and Low Cost Cybersecurity Learning Content: This resource provides links to resources on cybersecurity education, including materials for career and professional development and employee awareness training.
• Microsoft, Empower Everyone to Be a Cybersecurity Champion: This resource links to tools and information that can assist with cybersecurity training, from information about data protection threats for security professionals to best practices for small and medium-sized companies.

Protect Against Costly Cybersecurity Attacks

Strong cybersecurity can protect an organization’s data, customers, reputation and money. By learning how to plan employee cybersecurity awareness training and gathering the tools to implement it, workers, employers and business owners can safeguard these critical assets.