How can you create engaging cybersecurity training for your staff?

I find the best way to do this is to split your audience into categories. This will help create trainings that fit their description. I would test with the objective to keep them informed and up-to-date. It's always a good idea to get anonymous feedback. This will ensure you are not stepping on peoples feelings and staying on track. Actually being productive.

Align Training with Compliance Requirements If your organization falls under specific regulatory compliance, ensure the training meets those requirements. This alignment ensures legal compliance and adds a layer of gravitas, highlighting the critical nature of cybersecurity. Promote Continuous Feedback Loop Encourage staff to provide continuous feedback on training content, delivery, and areas of interest. This two-way communication ensures that training stays relevant, engaging, and aligned with the evolving cybersecurity landscape.

1. Most awareness programs fail because organisational security policies aren't concise and clear for audience. Your security awareness programs - be it a quiz, interviews, campaigns- its a subset of your organisational security requirements. So ensure its addressed first. 2. Quiz, surveys, events, gamifications, interviews are great avenues to gauge awareness benchmark. Use rewards to motivate staff. 3. The engagement becomes effective when you run simulations and role plays to gauge human response in real cyber-threats. 4. What unites and engages people ? Of course a good STORY. Use storytelling skills to convey cybersecurity messages. Build characters, add climax, make it engaging - you will notice heightened security awareness.

The success of awareness program lies on the original documents of the company. If they are prepared for compliance purpose and for salifying the auditors, the effectiveness of the program of awareness' is bound to fail. That's irrespective of the capability of the individual trainer.

1. Interactive trainings work well as it requires participation. Role-plays and simulations work wonders. Example run a ransomeware threat scenario and see how people respond in cyber-crisis. Towards end of the simulation, share outcomes and lesson learnt for everyone. 2. Make people brand ambassadors for your security program. Example - run a caption or poster making contest and offer rewards. Use winning captions and posters for driving your cybersecurity campaigns. So employees feel they are too contributing. 3. When it comes to gamifications, use team based games as its tests softskills such as collaboration during crisis. 4. Share security incidents, metrics, finding with everyone so they know areas of improvement.

I agree. My experience of training is on that line only. Interaction is the unique feature of a human being. Those emotions work. Role playing is one of the most tools to observe. I have seen many senior people are 'human' meaning carried away by emotions and away from the facts and figures. Another byproduct of role playing is that the trainer also learns something. They say teaching is a way of learning.

Incorporate Real-World Scenarios Engage your staff by simulating real-life cyber threats that are relevant to your industry. This could include phishing attacks, malware infiltration, or insider threat scenarios. By practicing in a safe and controlled environment, employees can gain hands-on experience, making the learning experience more tangible and memorable. Tailor Content to Different Roles Not all employees need the same level of cybersecurity training. Tailoring content to different organizational roles ensures that the training is relevant and meaningful. For example, IT staff may need more technical training, while customer-facing roles might focus on social engineering threats.

Utilize External Experts and Speakers Inviting external cybersecurity experts or speakers can bring new perspectives and insights. This adds credibility and provides a refreshing change from internal materials, keeping the engagement levels high. Provide Accessible On-Demand Resources Employees should have access to training resources that they can refer to at their convenience. Whether it’s a library of videos, documents, or interactive modules, on-demand resources allow staff to refresh their knowledge as needed and at their own pace.

1. Dont use generic security training for everyone. Let it be profile and persona based training. Example: A developer and finance guy can't go through similar security awarenes trainings. Their day to day risks and threats are different due to nature of Job. Let those stories and case studies be specific to the role. 2. For business alignment, let people managers be 'brand ambassadors' for your security program. They can reiterate security messages during daily huddles and meetings. Security awareness is more effective when the message is from manager (than going through computer based training) 3. Identify for the key threats and risks to the business. Use those relevant case studies, stories in awareness training.

Yes agree. But sometime the cross functional group works well as there will be exchange of ideas. The financial guy can get the idea how the security guy works and vice versa.

In my experience, most of the time, the technical team is more concerned about latest cybersecurity trends and jargon. To make cybersecurity training interesting for my team, I connect it to our company's goals and values. I show them how cybersecurity has an impact on their jobs and the whole organization. I use real-life examples, numbers, and stories to show the good things that can happen and the problems we might face. By tying the training to our company culture, vision, and mission, I help create a feeling that we're all in this together. This way of doing things makes the training matter to people. It helps the staff see why it's important and how it helps us do well as a company.

Create a Culture of Cybersecurity Awareness Beyond formal training sessions, fostering a culture of continuous awareness can keep cybersecurity at the forefront of employees’ minds. Regular email updates, posters, or casual discussions can reinforce key messages and demonstrate that cybersecurity is a shared responsibility. Build Community and Collaboration Encourage staff to share their insights, experiences, and questions through forums or community groups. This peer learning can create a sense of belonging and promote a culture where cybersecurity becomes part of the organizational DNA.

1. Cybersecurity trainings can be offered in many ways. It doesnt always have to be formal sessions. Example, lets say you have all staff meeting or townhall where senior mgmt reiterate important key security best practices. This message could carry a lot of weight. 2. Keep newsletter simple, easy to understand. Let webinar topics be relevant to the work. Let people write their own blogs . 3. Celebrate cybersecurity events such as cybersecurity awareness month or data privacy week. These event bring people together for a good cause. 4. More importantly, do not OVER COMMUNICATE. Flooding people with too many newsletter and updates will eventually lead to disaster. They will stop reading important messages.

Ensure Training is Practical and Actionable Theory is essential, but employees must know how to apply what they learn. Training should focus on practical steps and behaviors that employees can implement in their daily work. By providing actionable takeaways, you ensure that the training translates into real-world improvements in security posture. Rather than a static, one-size-fits-all approach, these strategies foster a dynamic learning environment where cybersecurity awareness becomes a core part of the organizational culture, ultimately enhancing the organization's overall security posture.

1.Evaluation of security awareness program is never easy unless the organization has developed KRIs ( Key risk indicators) . The goal of security awareness is to identify threats, protects assets, report and recover quickly from incidents. 2. From a compliance standpoint, you can measure completion rate of trainings and scores 3. The effective way is to see how your KRIs are performing Example : If you see 5 data leakage incidents on an average per month. You drive dedicated campaigns on DLP for awareness and the incidents drop by 75% on an average. This could be a good measure of effectiveness of awareness program. Capture monthly KRI data, build trends and share the risk posture with leadership as well as staff.

Security teams should also consider running internal phishing campaigns before the training sessions, creating those campaigns in a way that when the users make a mistake, they realise it ensuring that when they attend the trainings they are more appreciative and attentive to the training material. Once bitten twice shy.