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.
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:
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.
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:
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
