Cybersecurity awareness training is educational content designed to teach employees how to recognize cyberattacks and prevent or mitigate them. Given that human elements play a role in almost three-quarters (74%) of all data breaches, teaching people how to stop a cyberattack (instead of contributing to it) through cybersecurity awareness training can reap major dividends for companies both large and small.

While you can certainly hire outside experts to administer training on your behalf, creating your own cybersecurity awareness program allows you to tailor it exactly to your employees’ needs and your company’s most common threats.

Kara Sherrer, writing for TechRepublic Premium, outlines 15 steps that companies should follow to create their own program, from conducting a cybersecurity needs assessment to running simulated phishing attacks.

Featured text from the download:

6. IDENTIFY YOUR AUDIENCES

Once you have finished up your needs assessment, analyzed the results, and identified your company’s cybersecurity culture, it’s time to think about the different audiences you want to target with your training program.

Different teams will have various baseline levels of knowledge about cybersecurity and also distinct topics that are more relevant to them. Once you have identified your audiences, you can work on developing training programs that are customized for each group’s needs.

For example, an employee working in the sales department probably doesn’t need to know the details of maintaining your company firewalls. However, they do need to know how to identify a phishing email from someone posing as a potential new customer and how to report that email to IT.

Boost your cybersecurity with our in-depth 11-page PDF. This is available for download at just $9. Alternatively, enjoy complimentary access with a Premium annual subscription.

TIME SAVED: Crafting this content required 22 hours of dedicated writing, editing, research, and design.