We all know that a data breach can ruin a company’s bottom line – even leading to your business closing for good if the attack is severe enough. There’s numerous reasons for this: the cost of compliance fines, reputational damage and much more.
Given there’s so much at risk, it’s no wonder organizations are prioritizing cybersecurity more than ever before.
Of course, cybersecurity protection can seem like a behemoth. There’s many attack routes cybercriminals can take to compromise your company. But, while data theft has many causes, malicious actors have a few favorite tactics that they use time and time again to exploit organizations. One of the most used? Phishing.
What Is A Phishing Attack?
A phishing attack is an email or SMS-based attack in which a cyber-criminal sends a communication to their victim pretending to be someone else. They may fraudulently pose as a government body, health organization, well-known brand or even an individual that the victim knows, which is spear-phishing.
These attacks are widely prevalent, becoming more common each year. Research shows that roughly 90% of data breaches occur on account of phishing. Plus, according to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), phishing attacks increased 400% year-over-year in the last year alone.
As phishing has become more commonplace, awareness of the issue has grown. Most employees and businesses are aware that phishing attacks are a potent risk.
However, there’s clearly a disconnect occurring. Despite many organizations educating users on phishing, people are still falling victim.
There’s a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, attackers are becoming more stealthy and sneaky. It used to be that phishing emails were relatively easy to spot due to factors like spelling errors, fake email addresses and even spam filters that prevented employees from even receiving these emails in the first place.
But that’s changed now. Attackers are upping their game, meaning phishing emails are harder to differentiate from legitimate communications.
Secondly, not all phishing awareness training is equal. One off leaflets or boring eLearning courses about phishing aren’t going to trigger the deep cultural change needed to combat this issue. You need phishing awareness and training courses that make a real, long-term difference.
What is Phishing Awareness and Training?
Before diving into how to make a great phishing awareness and training course, let’s first cover off what these courses are.
Essentially, phishing awareness and training is a form of employee education that aims to help employees spot, report and evade phishing attempts.
As we’ve noted, there are several ways to deliver phishing awareness and training:
- In-person training courses
- Leaflets and pamphlets
- eLearning
Unfortunately, many training courses are designed to be a tick-box exercise. They don’t deliver true ROI.
That’s why we’ve partnered with USecure for our clients, to offer phishing awareness and training that makes a tangible difference to your security.
USecure Phishing Awareness and Training: Why It’s The Best Option
We’ve chosen USecure as our phishing awareness and training platform for our clients. Here’s why.
Micro-Learning WIthin The Workflow
Instead of taking employees out of work to complete training, USecure integrates into the daily workflow. This means your employees can learn on the job, which is great for improving learning outcomes while also enhancing productivity.
The Power of Simulations
Learning without a form of exam or test means you’ll never know whether your employees have taken onboard your training exercises. USecure validates training through fantastic simulations, which use simulated phishing emails to explore whether employees have become better at spotting phishing emails. Research shows that the more phishing simulations you perform, the better your employees will be at spotting these emails.
Proven ROI
USecure is proven to improve your employees’ abilities to evade phishing attacks, which ultimately improves your cybersecurity resilience and reduces the likelihood of a costly data breach or ransomware incident.
USecure: Getting Started
There’s certainly a lot to be gained from deploying USecure. But, for smaller organizations – especially those without an IT team – making sense of the platform can be challenging. You’ll need technical know-how and expertise to make the most out of USecure. On top of that, the platform is vital for phishing detection and training, but it doesn’t help you to defend against other attacks, such as supply chain incidents, cloud misconfigurations or DDos attacks.
For all these reasons, it’s best to collaborate with an expert managed IT provider, who can take the responsibility of deploying and managing USecure for you, while also improving your security posture as a whole.
We’re Your Partner for Exceptional Phishing Training
Ready to improve phishing awareness and training in your organization? We’re your trusted partner for all things USecure and cybersecurity. Consider us your own personal on-call security and IT team. We’re here for you at 732-747-0020 so contact us today.
