Tips to educate your staff on cybersecurity

Over the course of the two-day briefings at Black Hat 2017, a lot of interesting topics were discussed. Perhaps one of the more interesting topic areas was cybersecurity education. In fact, there were at least three panels on the topic.

An interesting point came up during a presentation from Arun Vishwanath of the University at Buffalo. He was discussing the problems with many cybersecurity training programs.

During his talk, Vishwanath focused on the high proportion of employees who fall victim to spear-phishing despite having training in the workplace. He then challenged companies to look more at how they are offering training to employees and really focusing on the why and where employees fall victim to the lures of cybercrime in a variety of forms.

It is not easy for IT teams to help train their companies’ staff and keep up with all of the threats they face each day. At Kaspersky Lab, we constantly share information to help IT pros educate staff with practical tips and also share those tips for employees to use at home. Below are some of the white papers that help train employees on cybersecurity hygiene (click the hyperlink to download).

Ransomware 101 — discusses what ransomware is and things employees should avoid.

Dangers of Phishing — similar to the thoughts from Vishwanath’s talk, this report offers IT pros practical tips to help their companies’ employees avoid phishing schemes.

Take it to the Board — a practical guide to the questions you should answer before going to your boss or board of directors and asking for more budget for cybersecurity.

Threats from Within — a good read on the topic of the human element being the weakest link in a company’s cybersecurity. It also offers tips for IT teams to pass along to employees.

Cryptoransomware — let’s face it, ransomware is not going anywhere. Over the past year, we have seen major attacks cripple businesses including hospitals and major telecom companies. We have also seen global outbreaks of ransomware with WannaCry.

We hope that you find these five papers helpful in building out training for your staff. If there are topics that you’d like to see us cover more, give us a shout on Twitter and we will see what we can do.