Beyond Phishing: Expanding Employee Security Awareness to Tackle New Threats
Did you know that cybercrime is expected to surpass $12 trillion in 2025?
In today’s threat landscape, cyber threats are evolving at an alarming rate, underpinning a tectonic shift in how organizations train their employees. While phishing remains a major threat, responsible for 36% of data breaches, the rise of new threats such as insider threats, ransomware, zero-day vulnerabilities, identity-based attacks, deepfakes, and GenAI-driven attacks demands a more comprehensive security awareness strategy. Moreover, the need for cyber skills and talent shortage continues to widen the threat exposure, posing a serious threat for both businesses and individuals.
This blog dives deeper into the evolving threat landscape, discussing effective strategies to empower employees to recognize and respond to the wider array of cyber threats.
Understanding the Threat Landscape: New Threats on the Table 2024
The digital threat landscape is constantly shifting, introducing new attack vectors and tactics aimed at exploiting vulnerabilities in an organization’s security infrastructure.
A few key trends have intensified the need for security awareness among employees:
Phishing Attacks: Despite being one of the oldest cyber threats, phishing remains a prevalent issue. Phishing scammers masquerade themselves as the most trustworthy identity, such as those of government entities or service providers. They often create a sense of fear and urgency by sending deceptive emails or links to trick employees into revealing their sensitive information.
According to Cisco’s 2021 report, “90% of data breaches are caused by phishing scams, affecting millions of people who fall victim to these scams every year.”
Ransomware Realities: Around one-third of all data breaches now involve ransomware or related extortion techniques, underscoring a significant rise in ransomware attacks. As ransomware tactics become increasingly complex and negotiations more aggressive, we expect to see more groups employing double and triple extortion tactics in a bid to pressure payment.
Learn how to prevent ransomware attacks!
Identity-Based Attacks: Did you know 75% of the attacks to gain initial access were malware-free? The rise of identity-based attacks has taken center stage as adversaries are constantly striving for legitimate ways to access the victim’s environments. These attacks often target IAM weaknesses, ranging from credential stuffing to insider threats. As organizations shift towards remote and hybrid work, they tend to have more dispersed identities to manage, often lacking unified visibility across platforms.
Zero-day Exploit: Zero-day exploitation has become more prevalent in IoT devices, firewalls, and VPNs, posing a significant threat due to their unknown nature and the potential for immediate exploitation by cybercriminals before any proactive measures are taken. This security flaw was significantly used by ransomware actors that were unknown to the vendor and had not yet been patched. “Zero days” refers to the fact that the developers had zero days to fix the issue since it was discovered. These vulnerabilities are particularly dangerous because they can be exploited by cybercriminals before any protective measures are implemented, leaving systems and data at significant risk.
Supply chain attacks: The growing prevalence of supply chain attacks accounted for 15% of data breaches. Attackers are increasingly targeting supply chains, cloud service providers, and third-party infrastructures to compromise the trusted vendor’s integrity of products and services. They are using advanced tactics, including social engineering and malware injection, to infiltrate supply chains through legitimate channels.
Insider Threats: Insider threats can stem from employees, contractors, or business partners who have inside information concerning the organization’s security practices, data, network, and computer systems. 43% of all breaches are executed by insider threats. Insider threats can be intentional, such as malicious actions taken by disgruntled employees. On the other hand, it can be unintentional due to human error or negligence. According to the Poneman Institute, 55% of insider threats were due to employee negligence.
Addressing these threats requires a more sophisticated, multi-faceted approach that combines advanced threat detection and response mechanisms, continuous monitoring, and a steadfast commitment to employee training and security awareness.
The Critical Role of Security Awareness Training: Empowering Employees
Employee security awareness is the first line of defense against these emerging threats.
Research shows that even a modest investment in Security Awareness Training can significantly reduce the business impact of a cyberattack by 72%. On the contrary, organizations are increasingly realizing that merely investing in advanced security technology is insufficient to safeguard their valuable assets and prevent data breaches. Hence, CXOs and CISOs are focusing on establishing policies and fostering a culture of security awareness through comprehensive training programs.
Beyond phishing simulations, organizations today require a proactive approach that includes cultivating a “human firewall” of employees who can recognize and respond to nuanced threats in real-time. Leveraging AI and automation in security training can support these goals, enabling real-time alerts and simulations catering to each employee’s learning path and bridging the skill gap left by limited cybersecurity staffing.
Here are some effective strategies for enhancing employee security training programs:
Embracing Interactive Learning and Gamification Methods
According to the Gartner Survey, “Low engagement is one of the biggest challenges in employee security awareness and training programs.”
Traditional security awareness training methods often lack user engagement and knowledge retention, accelerate security behavior change and practical security practices. Gamification and interactive learning play a pivotal role in transforming boring learning and training into more engaging and rewarding experiences while increasing employee productivity.
Interactive training modules provide employees with hands-on experience in simulated security scenarios, such as managing suspicious emails and recognizing social engineering tactics. This approach builds confidence and enhances preparedness for real-world threats, with immediate feedback promoting continuous learning.
- Gamification: Gamified training incorporates reward systems like leaderboards and competitions, motivating employees to complete modules and participate actively by offering badges, certificates, and prizes. Using avatars allows users to create digital personas that simulate real-life attack situations, fostering an immersive learning experience.
- Collaborative Learning: Collaborative learning further enriches gamified training through group discussions and role-playing exercises, encouraging teamwork and peer-to-peer learning. These activities deepen employees’ understanding of cybersecurity’s importance in organizational resilience while fostering camaraderie, ultimately equipping them to collectively defend against cyber threats.
- Microlearning: Microlearning is an innovative approach to training that delivers short, focused learning sessions designed to teach specific skills or concepts quickly. It allows employees to learn critical information in bite-sized modules, making it easier to fit training into their busy schedules.
Role-Specific Security Awareness Training (SAT) with Personalized Learning Content
To stay ahead of sophisticated AI-driven cyber threats, implementing role-based security awareness training (SAT) is paramount. Unlike traditional SAT programs, which often lack customization and relevance, AI can create personalized and role-specific SAT training content, catering to the employee’s unique responsibilities, learning styles, past behaviors, and risks associated with their job functions. Moreover, it can identify employees who need more targeted training and support.
For instance, HR can receive training for handling sensitive employee information securely, whereas Finance executives can learn to recognize and prevent financial fraud and phishing attacks. This dynamic approach ensures that every employee is equipped with knowledge and skills to proactively identify and prevent cyber threats, ultimately safeguarding critical assets of organizations.
This automated training also builds custom reminder workflows to encourage employees to complete their training by sending personalized reminders via email, Slack, and Teams. This personalized approach evaluates employee behavior during training, ultimately enhancing engagement and retention.
AI-Driven Real-world Attack Simulations
Attack simulators play a vital role in assessing an organization’s security posture by mimicking a wide range of real-world attack scenarios in a controlled environment. The well-crafted attack scenarios highlight vulnerabilities, enabling security teams to address and mitigate them before they materialize into full-blown incidents; AI can simulate more sophisticated and realistic cyber-attack scenarios, generate secure code examples, and assist in analyzing large datasets to identify security vulnerabilities, offering data-driven insights and comprehensive assessment report, ensuring cyber resilience. Simulation training is usually conducted by the IT department to boost security awareness and vigilance among users and test their impulsive behavior to strengthen their muscle memory.
Measuring the Impact of Employee Security Awareness Training
Measuring the impact of security awareness training for employees helps organizations identify hidden vulnerabilities and prioritize training efforts by analyzing simulation results, employee feedback, security incident trends, incident response time, and knowledge assessment scores.
Continuous Learning and Adaptation
As the threat landscape constantly evolves, organizations should regularly update their training materials to keep end-users informed about the latest threats and best practices, enhancing their ability to detect and mitigate risk effectively. Continuously gathering employee feedback on training effectiveness helps organizations to identify potential vulnerabilities in their network.
Building a Security Awareness Culture
Building a robust security awareness culture requires a seamless collaboration between security professionals and other employees. This holistic approach ensures that everyone in the organization receives adequate training, takes shared responsibility, and is deeply committed to defending critical assets across the organization. However, it also requires a strong commitment from the top down, including leadership, employees, processes, and methods used for addressing security incidents.
Here are some tips for creating a security awareness culture
- Leadership Involvement: Leadership must actively promote the importance of cybersecurity. When executives prioritize security, it sets a tone that resonates throughout the organization, encouraging employees to take security seriously.
- Regular Training and Drills: Implementing regular training sessions and incident response drills helps employees understand their roles in maintaining security. These exercises simulate real-world scenarios, allowing staff to practice their response protocols effectively.
- Open Communication Channels: Encouraging open community forums for employees about security concerns fosters a sense of shared responsibility, making them feel comfortable reporting suspicious activities without fear of repercussions.
Bottom Line: The Inevitable Role of Informed Employees
Cyber-attacks now occur every 39 seconds, 95% of which are caused by human error.
As Cybersecurity Awareness Month unfolds this October 2024, organizations around the globe are gearing up to elevate their defenses and secure the digital landscape. This year’s theme, “Secure Our World,” isn’t just a slogan—it’s a rallying call for unified action toward safer digital hygiene practices. As threats loom around every corner, comprehensive security awareness training is essential for building digital resilient workforce to empower employees to counter threats ranging from phishing and insider threats to ransomware and sophisticated social engineering tactics.
