From Snooze to Enthuse: Security Awareness Training That Sticks

From Snooze to Enthuse: Security Awareness Training That Sticks

October 20, 2023 at 05:32PM

Employees experience a physical “escape room” to enhance security awareness. They role-play as criminal social engineers and identify vulnerabilities in a mock office space. The aim is for employees to understand the importance of physical security and remember practices like keeping whiteboards clean, locking laptops, and hiding or shredding documents. Effective security awareness training should be frequent, tailored to the audience, delivered through various methods, and make use of storytelling and gamification. Building trust and understanding employees’ perspectives are crucial for success.

The meeting notes discuss the importance of effective security awareness training for employees. The training should go beyond compliance and focus on delivering compelling, timely, engaging, and memorable content. The key problem with many training programs is that they are viewed as a box to be ticked for compliance purposes, lacking depth and engagement. To make security awareness training more effective, it is important to deliver the content through communication channels that employees use daily, such as Slack and Teams. Training should be frequent and delivered in a variety of ways, utilizing storytelling, leveraging current events, and providing role-based training. It is crucial to understand the audience and tailor the training to their specific risks and needs. Additionally, making the training experience fun, creative, and memorable through gamification, stories, and positive reinforcement can increase engagement and retention. Building trust with employees and becoming a trusted source of information is also important for effective security awareness training.

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