How Online Safety Training Can Benefit Staff At Every Level Of Your Business

With companies becoming more digitally advanced and with more people working at home unsupervised, ensuring that your team is aware of cyber security risks is more important than ever.

Even if you have a dedicated IT team, hackers can target staff across your organisation. Every member of your team could potentially expose your company to a cyber attack if not given the proper training. 

Recent studies show that 91% of firms may be exposed to having their website address spoofed and used to send spam or fraudulent emails under their name. Another report found that human error accounted for 90% of all data breaches, costing UK companies £2.9 million per breach on average. 

Hackers can attack companies from a wide range of angles. Viruses placed within emails can be a common way to infiltrate databases and extract valuable information. If your team members can raise concerns about dangerous looking emails, it could help your company stop hackers in their tracks.

CEOs interact with areas across the company and have a deep understanding of how their business works from top to bottom. With that in mind, it’s sensible for those at the highest levels of the business to take part in online safety awareness courses. 

Research shows that companies that conducted tailored executive-level cyber security training were 12% more likely to have identified and protected critical data and were 14% more likely to have an incident response plan.

Heads of small and medium-sized businesses may benefit significantly from training like this. This is because it will give those CEOs and executives a better understanding of their risk level as a company, allowing them to allocate funds to specialist IT personnel accordingly to proactively mitigate any issues. 

The cost of a hack can be severe, so smaller businesses and startups should be especially aware of the financial implications that can be posed by a cyber attack.

Ensuring that your marketing team is aware of the solid safety practices is vital, as they are interacting with individuals from outside your organisation via email on a daily basis.

Employees who are looking for opportunities to promote your company can be at a higher risk of being targeted for scams such as phishing or may be more likely to download malware hidden in emails sent from individuals posing as legitimate representatives of a company.

A staggering 91% of hacks start with an email, so any members of your company who frequently communicate with others via this medium could have an increased risk. Furthermore, they may publish contact information on public channels such as LinkedIn or Facebook, making them an easier target for hackers looking for ways to contact employees with spam emails.

These staff members knowing the telltale signs of harmful emails could be vital in protecting your company against a significant breach.

One of the most critical staff groups that can often be overlooked when it comes to cyber security is IT and website maintenance teams. Sometimes, companies might not realise that even if their IT team is trained in cyber security, their knowledge can become outdated if it isn’t updated regularly. 

Businesses around the world are finding it increasingly difficult to source specialist cyber security personnel. Making sure that your current IT team is getting the regular  training they need to stay on top is vital, as you may find it difficult to recruit talent in this area in the long run as your company grows.

Incorporating members of these teams into your online security strategy will allow you to get an expert opinion on cyber security. These employees already have a strong understanding of the common risks faced by companies in an online environment and could hugely benefit from in-depth training in this area.

Many companies are now onboarding employees who will be spending a significant portion of their time working from home. In an unsupervised setting, without online safety awareness training, these new team members may be at risk of interacting with potentially harmful emails that could infect company laptops or computers.

Recent reports show that there has been a 600% increase in phishing emails since February many of which are targeting remote employees. Furthermore, employees who choose to work in public areas, such as cafes, are at a higher risk of connecting to fake networks set up by scammers designed to collect sensitive information from the user.

Giving new employees the knowledge they need to safely use the internet and interact with others via email outside of a supervised setting gives both you and your employees the peace of mind they need to go about their daily tasks in a risk-free way.