Employee Cybersecurity Awareness Training in Minnesota and Iowa

The most frequent cybersecurity threats to organizations are the people who work for them. Hackers know that they can exploit an employee’s willingness to help, lack of technical skill, and workload. ProCircular’s training starts and ends with people and enables your greatest weakness to become your greatest defensive asset.

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What Is Cybersecurity Awareness Training?

Your employees must have the tools to defend against something they’re unaware of. Cybersecurity awareness training uses various tactics and techniques to help participants understand the risks associated with their digital environment and adopt behaviors that protect the business and themselves. They’ll learn about common risks and essential processes, like how to identify phishing emails and when to transmit data with more secure methods.

When they complete employee cybersecurity training, your workers will better understand:

The cybersecurity threats that face the business
Their role as front-line defenders against these threats
The impact of a breach and social engineering
Tactics to prevent hacks and breaches

Cybersecurity training for employees typically occurs on a regular basis, annually at the least. The threat landscape is always changing, and employees are, of course, human. They’ll forget things over time, so recurring training helps them retain the information and ensure it stays top-of-mind during their time with your company.

Employee training is crucial, but it’s only one part of a company’s cybersecurity approach. Be sure to pair it with other measures, such as penetration testing and incident response and forensics.

Why Is Cybersecurity Training Important?

Data breaches and cyber attacks can be costly, and the human element is often the weakest link. Your employees are your first line of defense against cyber threats, and good education can strengthen that defense. One employee paying attention to the details can be the difference between a million-dollar breach and a simple intervention from the IT team.

While employee cybersecurity training is crucial for any business, it’s especially important for those in highly regulated industries like finance and health care. Data breaches in these fields can come with severe consequences, including criminal charges, government sanctions, and hefty fines. While entirely eliminating human error is unrealistic, investing in cybersecurity training for employees can reduce your risk. It can also demonstrate a good-faith commitment to security and employee training if an incident were to occur.

Some businesses will have more risk associated with human error than others. If you’re unsure where you stand, a vulnerability assessment can help you get a better picture.

Regardless of your industry, training employees on cybersecurity best practices results in greater data protection, more secure processes for you and your team, and overall increased peace of mind.

ProCircular’s Cybersecurity Training for Employees

ProCircular offers a variety of cybersecurity training services in Iowa and Minnesota to suit the needs of your business and staff. These options cover a variety of cybersecurity topics, including phishing awareness training, password management, and more.

Our standard end-user security awareness training includes a 1-1.5 hour onsite presentation to introduce the concepts of phishing, password management, and specific threats that exist in your industry. This package also includes two staff-wide phishing campaigns and security questionnaires to evaluate end-user security before and after the training.

Training topics align with industry best practices and are customized to suit the client’s greatest areas of need. These topics might include:

General cybersecurity awareness
Phishing awareness training
Identifying sensitive information
Defending against social engineering — the right to say “no” to hackers
Password management
Personal security best practices

By increasing user awareness in these areas, you can greatly reduce the risk of exposure due to social engineering or human error.

Along with our standard cybersecurity training, we offer escape room security awareness training for a fun, interactive approach that encourages proactive behavior.

Employees will get a brief introduction to cybersecurity basics and the rules of the game before we set them loose on the task of protecting the business from an invading hacker. They’ll work in groups to break down clues and use their skills to neutralize the threat in this exciting, multi-layer puzzle. Participants can apply their knowledge in a real-world scenario while engaging in team-building activities.

Our Security Awareness Training Process

ProCircular’s security awareness training is a hands-on process, from the customized phishing email to the interactive training activities. You provide the staff, and one of ProCircular’s security training professionals will arrive on a training day with all the necessary materials for your customized cybersecurity awareness training.

Our cybersecurity awareness training program typically follows this structure:

We’ll start with a project kick-off meeting to get to know your needs and confirm the project’s scope and schedule.
Then, we’ll conduct a phishing campaign against a list of users your company provides. These users will receive a slightly fishy-looking email that prompts them to click a link or provide their credentials. If an employee falls for the phish, we’ll be notified.
During our on-site presentation, we’ll deliver the results from that initial phishing campaign and train your staff on a range of cybersecurity best practices, like phishing awareness, identifying sensitive information, and properly managing their credentials. Our experienced instructors will walk employees through becoming a defensive wall between sensitive data and potential attackers.
After the on-site training, we’ll run a follow-up phishing campaign to assess your employees’ progress. Our team then wraps everything up in a report with your pre-training and post-training user security status.

The best way to approach training employees on cybersecurity is to enable hands-on experience with different cyber topics and best practices. ProCircular’s security awareness training is not just a dry PowerPoint presentation. It is an interactive workshop that includes live hacking demos, role-playing, discussion, and real-world examples. People leave our training not only educated but excited to exercise their knowledge and help prevent cyber threats from infiltrating their organization.

What Does ProCircular’s Employee Training Include?

Our in-depth employee cybersecurity training services provide your business with:

List Item One

Employee understanding of how to defend the organization against hackers

List Item Two

A more secure organization and tighter cybersecurity

List Item Three

A written report of the findings from our phishing attempts and improvement

Protect Your Employees and Your Business With ProCircular

The first defense against real-world threats is usually your people. Give them the tools they need to protect your business with thorough testing and training. Our hands-on approach to cybersecurity training for employees can fortify the human element of your security program and position your team for success.

To learn more about our cybersecurity training in Minnesota and Iowa, reach out to us online, call us at 844-95-SECUR or email us at sales@procircular.com.