Security Awareness Training in Calgary

IT Security Training

Every industry in every country has struggled with cybercrime. And no matter the layers of security in place, without security awareness training to transform your employees into a hardened last line of defense, you will remain at risk. For every big corporation making the news when they have a cybersecurity breach – i.e. the Capital Ones and Equifaxes of the world – there are hundreds of small and mid-size businesses who are also being targeted. Your mid-size business might have a smaller IT budget, but your employees can be just as alert and aware as the employees in a large corporation with security awareness training.

What Is Security Awareness Training?

Security Awareness Training is a comprehensive training that teaches your employees to be more aware of the potential risk contained in every email. The cybercriminal’s methods can sometimes be too sophisticated to be caught by threat detection software and firewalls, so employee awareness can play a significant role in keeping your company’s data safe.

With security awareness training from The ITeam, your employees will be equipped with the information they need to protect themselves and your organization’s assets.

Our training provides necessary information for members of all levels of your organization. This includes employees, contractors, and anybody who is authorized to access your organization’s network.

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Since 1996, The ITeam has been serving Calgary businesses with integrity, commitment, and the highest level of excellence.

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What Does The ITeam’s Security Awareness Training Include?

KnowBe4 Phishing Training

We partner with top cybersecurity training companies to provide security awareness training that helps your employees become more vigilant about email security.

They will learn to recognize the clues that help them identify emails that are not legitimate.

Through this training, our team runs regular phishing tests to evaluate employee awareness and identify vulnerabilities. These catches are used as learning tools to improve knowledge and better prepare your organization for real phishing attempts.

Social Engineering

Phishing training and testing is an important way to create another layer of defence, but employees should learn about social engineering as well.

Social engineering is a sophisticated form of a cyber-attack, in which information about the employees is lifted from their social media accounts so that the employee is less likely to suspect that the email is coming from a cybercriminal.

Making references to more detailed information found on social profiles can seem as if the person is familiar with the employee. This can result in employees being exposed to a lot of potential threats. And cybercriminals are only getting smarter with their techniques.

By constantly training and testing your employees, they are equipped with the right knowledge to protect your company’s network.

During our training, your employees will learn about some common good cyber hygiene habits. This includes:

  • Managing their own social media profiles and protecting their information,
  • Using security settings to prevent cybercriminals from gaining access to information that can be used against them and your organization,
  • How to properly use a VPN and avoid connecting to public WiFi

Why Is Security Awareness Training Important?

All it takes is one employee clicking one link in one email to set off a chain of events that could be catastrophic for your business.

Whether they’re duped by an email demanding payment and wire $10,000 to a criminal or click a link that triggers a malware download into your network, every action your employees take is critical.

The threat is everywhere, and it’s more than just phishing attacks and malware. Even your infrastructure may be at risk.

Organizations that must comply with industry regulations such as PIPEDA (PIPA in Alberta), or submit privacy impact assessments (PIAs), require regular security awareness training to ensure all employees are up-to-date with the latest compliance.

And even though it may not seem to be necessary for small and medium businesses for compliance reasons, training your employees can have great benefits. Your employee can learn to:

  • Identify phishing attempts to prevent potential costly attacks,
  • Recognize when an account takeover happens,
  • Distinguish malicious requests that appear to come from a senior executive.

How to Identify Your Risks

One of the most effective ways to identify your risk is to run baseline tests and phishing tests to see how your employees respond.

While not intentional, employees might fall for the phish if it appears to be sent from a trusting source.

This means that if an email comes from what appears to be the CEO, the employee may be motivated to take action immediately. This often results in a payment to a cybercriminal or a link clicked that introduces ransomware into the network.

Big corporations run phishing tests regularly to understand their user behaviours and to continue to strengthen their human firewalls.

These tests put employees in situations where they have to make decisions that will determine the potentiality of their organization getting breached.

Phishing simulations provide users options to either click a link, report the phish, or do nothing.

  • BEST-CASE SCENARIO – The employee will report the phishing attempt to help the company increase resilience.
  • IN THE ALTERNATIVE – Where they fall for the phish, this is the perfect opportunity for you to identify your organization’s weaknesses and provide the appropriate training.
  • DOING NOTHING – Doing nothing is also not an ideal option. This poses potential threats that other employees might become unaware of any threats and may fall for the phishing attempt.

By running these tests, you can educate your employees before the real cybercriminal tricks them into exposing data or putting your organization at risk.

Choosing The Right Cyber Security Training
For Your Employees

Security awareness is the last line of defence. It’s not a one-and-done scenario but an ongoing culture of awareness, zero trusts, and top-down support.

It does not matter what industry you are in, security awareness training will protect your organization and minimize risk.

Whether you’re a dental clinic where patient records might be accessed by cybercriminals if an employee accidentally clicks a link or you’re a construction company who might send thousands of dollars to the wrong vendor because of a phishing email, training matters.

REMAIN CYBER SECURE WITH THE ITEAM

The training we provide is designed to engage your employees and help them remember to be alert for risk. It also empowers them to say no – without impunity – if they believe there’s a risk.

Cyber Security Awareness Training with The ITeam is designed to deliver more than just peace of mind. It is designed to transform your team into a hardened and tough layer of defence against the most sophisticated cybercriminals.

The System Really Works

After years of helping our customers train their employees to better manage the urgent IT security problems of social engineering, spear phishing and ransomware attacks, we decided to go back , and look at the actual numbers over a 12 month period.

We aggregated the numbers and the overall Phish-prone percentage drops from an average of 15.9% to an amazing 1.2% in just 12 months. The combination of web-based training and frequent simulated phishing attacks really works.

phish prone percentage