Why You Should Have End-User Training In Place For All Of Your Employees

Regardless of what your business does, at some point, digital technology will be involved. Whether you run your entire business online or just respond to your emails, you must be aware of cybercriminals’ threats. This can be provided in the shape of end-user training for you and your employees, as this can help keep you safe.

This might seem like just another expense at a time when costs are rising and profits could be falling. However, not investing in this can be considered a false economy for many reasons.

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End-User Training Mitigates Security Risks

Your employees are the first line of defense against online threats, so you must ensure they have the training they need. An untrained member of staff becomes your Achilles heel and could unwittingly click on a link that opens the door to cybercriminals and potentially ruin for you.

On the other hand, trained employees can be taught to spot threats like:

Phishing emails – these are sent by cybercriminals pretending to be a contact but will contain a suspicious download or link to a data harvesting site. These tend to be rather simplistic, but it is surprising how many people still fall victim to this simple ruse.
Vishing –this is a lesser-known tactic but no less effective. Vishing occurs when a scammer calls pretending to be from a legitimate company with the intention of getting personal information like driving license number or SSN.
Spear phishing – this is similar to phishing but is considerably more sophisticated. Here, the email will contain some correct details (possibly gained using vishing) to give it extra credibility and will only be sent to a relatively small number of people.This might be everyone in a small company or in a single department of a large one.

Protecting Data

It doesn’t matter how small your company is; if you have customers or even just contacts, you have sensitive data to protect. By insisting that everyone has end-user training, they will better understand the importance of this data.

They will also be aware of the financial implications and potential damage to your reputation should a data breach occur. This could affect the future of your business as well as their employment.

Reduction Of Costs

You can also reduce IT costs by decreasing the chances of going out of business due to a cyberattack. This will come in the shape of having fewer minor incidents for your IT team to sort out, allowing them to concentrate on other business improvement tasks.

Improving Morale

As well as keeping your business safe, any employee receiving end-user training is bound to apply what they have learned in their lives. This will make them more confident online generally, and this will have the knock-on effect of increasing their morale. This can be increased further as the employee will feel a greater sense of worth because you have invested time, effort, and money in training them.