When it comes to cybersecurity training, small businesses have an advantage because they have fewer employees than large companies. This means that customizing training content and ensuring everyone completes their training is easy, but it also means that even a small mistake can have enormous consequences for your small business. To make sure your cybersecurity training is as thorough as possible, we’ve put together some tips that small business owners can keep in mind when planning their employee training!
Cybersecurity Training for Everyone
The first step to comprehensive cybersecurity training is delivering that training to everyone. Every employee should complete their training as soon as possible, but this should be the baseline. Small business owners should keep track of everyone who has access to their business’ network and verify that they have received some form of cybersecurity training as well. Hackers don’t care if the unsecured endpoint they find for your network is an employee or a family member visiting the shop, and you must take the proper precautions to ensure anyone who interacts with your network knows how to keep your business safe.
Customize Your Training
Once everyone who needs training has been identified, the training they receive should have elements tailored to their role in the business or the threats that are most relevant to the technology they use. For example, if the employee handling the business’ finances does not interact with network equipment, then they may not need cybersecurity training on common misconfigurations that make the network vulnerable. They will, however, need training how the newest phishing tactics because it is likely they will receive phishing emails that appear financially urgent in order to trick them into clicking a malicious link.
Gather Statistics Regularly
After every round of training, it is important to gather statistics and analyze the results to plan the next courses. Important factors to note are the elements of the training that had a low success rate across many people, so you can choose training that emphasizes those weaknesses to improve results next time. Once the content areas to improve on have been identified, strong statistics allow a small business to see which departments had low participation in the training or if specific individuals require additional cybersecurity training to improve their skills. Remember to always engage with employees positively about their training because statistics are best put to use constructively rather than as a reason to punish individuals.
Summary
Cybersecurity training is an absolute must for every small business, but we here at Robinett Consulting know that planning, executing, and iterating training can be difficult for small business owners alone. That’s why we recommend working with an IT consultant like us to plan and run your training for you. Our experienced security specialists can run your training at regular intervals and offer actionable statistics and suggestions to help further improve your small business’ security posture. This way, you can focus on growing your business and serving your clients while Robinett Consulting works to improve your security posture!
