A robust cybersecurity culture that promotes risk awareness and mitigation is vital for companies of all sizes. As of 2023, the average cost of a data breach has doubled to $9.44 million since 2021 reports. But your people don’t have to be weak links in your organization. Invest time and resources to equip them with security awareness and compliance training, which helps them reduce the margin for human error and better safeguard your company. Let’s explore some of the ways that you can enhance your organization’s cybersecurity culture.
1. Establish Cybersecurity Policies and Procedures
The foundation of any cybersecurity culture lies in the policies and procedures.
Create an Information Security Policy that addresses:
- Your company’s cybersecurity objectives and its commitment to security awareness and compliance.
- The creation of security policies for specific systems, such as customer-facing applications, payroll systems, or data archive systems.
- The development of cybersecurity protocols for particular threats, for example, phishing attacks or mobile security threats.
Your organization’s cybersecurity policies should also provide procedures or guidelines for key operational areas, such as: device security, data retention and encryption, network access control, management of business risks, security awareness and compliance training, and business continuity.
2. Regular Security Awareness Training
Frequent security awareness training sessions are critical to building a strong cybersecurity culture. This training prevents and mitigates user error and reduces the chance of a costly data breach. Effective security awareness training helps your staff understand proper cyber hygiene and the security risks their actions may cause. They will learn how to quickly identify cyberattacks that they may encounter in their emails or online.
Good security awareness training typically includes phishing awareness, password security, safe data storage and retrieval, clean desk practices, and compliance with relevant industry standards. Working with a Managed Services Provider (MSP) can give you access to their vetted tools and solutions to perform these security awareness training sessions.
3. Regular Compliance Training
Compliance training is mandatory employee training so that your organization can satisfy the regulations, legislation, and policies associated with your operations. These compliance requirements vary across industries. SMBs should ensure that their MSPs are experts in their industry to help them be compliant.
Effective compliance training is tailored to meet your staff’s needs, includes refresher modules, takes advantage of all learning styles, continuously measures results, and is incorporated in your company’s reporting procedures. Training may involve audit drills for regular practice and should also help your organization maintain a favorable compliance status.
4. Incident Response Drills
Implementing leading industry tools will not stop all cyber attacks. It’s important that your staff know how to react when attacks inevitably get through.
Conducting live drills and tabletop exercises let your employees practice incident response while empowering them to act fast.
When you pair a Managed Detection & Response solution with tabletop simulations, your company will be set with the tools and internal coordinated response plan to properly protect your business. Thycotic, a leading cybersecurity vendor, publishes a free Incident Response Plan template to get you started.
5. Recognize & Reward Your Cybersecurity Promoters
Cybersecurity culture is people-centric, and recognizing and rewarding champions of cybersecurity motivates them and others to support a secure environment and minimize your business risks. Provide incentives such as cash and gift cards for completing security awareness and compliance training, or support for advanced cybersecurity certifications, and more opportunities for advancement in security-related roles. These incentives mean more business spending, but this cost is far less than the costs of disruption and other consequences from a cyber attack on your company.
Build Your Cybersecurity Culture with Net Friends
If you run an SMB, you will not likely have a huge IT department to implement these cybersecurity best practices. When you choose Net Friends as your MSSP, you get access to the leading IT security tools and services, all at an affordable, fixed, monthly cost. Contact us today to discuss how we can protect your organization and help you build a strong cybersecurity culture to secure your profit margin and business growth.
Originally Published: November 16, 2021
Revised: February 27, 2023
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