The tight labor market makes recruiting and retaining talent difficult, especially in the accounting and finance profession. The employees you do hire become valued, trusted members of your team, so it can be unsettling to think that they’re one of your most significant security risks when it comes to data breaches.
Why Is Security Awareness Training Important?
You have the greatest proximity to your business and client data. Therefore, it’s up to you to protect it.
Unfortunately, as you’re probably aware, human error is the biggest cybersecurity threat to businesses. In fact, the “human element” was part of 68% of breaches in 2024. This staggering statistic exemplifies how every business has employees unknowingly exposing their organization to risk all the time.
And no matter how knowledgeable or well-intentioned your staff may be, it’s critical to understand just how big of a security risk they represent.
According to an EisnerAmper survey recently referenced in Accounting Today, 71% of companies are worried that their employees could trigger a cyber incident, even though they simultaneously believe only 23% of employees would maliciously harm their IT systems.
Consider that it takes just one team member clicking one malicious phishing link to open your entire network up to data loss—and by default, reputational damage.
How to Begin Building a Culture of Security Awareness
Now that you are aware of just how crucial your role is in keeping your business safe—and how many risks are facing you and your colleagues each day—you are likely wondering how to begin to build a culture where security is top-of-mind.
Shifting your culture is easier said than done; with staffing shortages in professions like accounting, employee time is precious. It’s no secret that appropriate mindshare is not always given to security.
But based on our experience with accounting and business professionals, we believe that security awareness training is the cornerstone of any emerging security program. With people your main source of risk and email the main attack vector, it only makes sense to train your employees and then invest in the appropriate managed security solutions.
The ideal approach involves a combination of technology and the right training solution to create a sound security culture.
Download: Free Cybersecurity Guide
7 Security Awareness Training Program Best Practices
Consider each of the following proven and tested tips to accomplish this:
1. Make it year-round.
Implementing security awareness training is the most important action to keep your employees security-informed and mitigate the risk of data breaches.
- Pushing out regularly scheduled, year-round training is crucial to keep staff current and hypersensitive to ever-evolving scams. One-time annual training or training delivered during initial employee onboarding just doesn’t cut it anymore.
- Consider making monthly training (and refresher courses) a business requirement.
- Be sure to choose security awareness curricula that are consistently updated, making sure that lessons align with current threats likely to impact employees.
- Offer lessons that promote high engagement and are provided in digestible, bite-sized nuggets. Employees are more likely to retain key takeaways and complete courses that are thoughtfully created and require a 5-minute (on average) time commitment.
2. Provide targeted phishing simulations.
Your approach to security awareness training should include a frequent push of real-world phishing simulations. These should align with your business and/or specific employee roles.
If you have bookkeeping staff, it’s important to understand the level of risk facing this particular group. Bookkeepers often receive emails claiming to be from extensive accounting and tax software providers such as Intuit. These emails will be convincing, sophisticated, and micro-targeted.
Regular phishing simulations ensure that employees recognize even the smallest red flags within emails. This helps staff stay alert to scams and identify malicious links or emails they should not respond to.
Although some employees may be good at spotting scammer emails, regular practice is still critical to a sound security culture. A momentary lapse in judgment can lead to a malicious link being clicked and a disastrous breach.
3. Evaluate your technology stack.
The right technology stack can prevent phishing, spoofing, and other varieties of scam emails before they reach your employees’ inboxes. Evaluate fully managed email solutions that provide peace of mind via ongoing email monitoring. Mitigating the number of employee encounters with malicious emails further lowers the risk of a data breach.
Next, implement a second security gate with monitoring and remediation. Monitoring and remediation blocks threats if an employee accidentally clicks a link or introduces a virus.
Consider a provider that uses a combination of technologies—including antivirus and endpoint detection and response (EDR)—to identify threats. The best providers will respond quickly to incidents and work to mitigate data loss or other damage.
4. Make security awareness training fun.
Choose a training platform that has gamification elements. It is motivating for employees to see who on their team finishes their training early or performs well on assessments. You might even consider incentivizing high performers.
5. Keep it simple and stay mindful of employee time.
Here again, you may want to consider a vendor that manages your security awareness training for you. Using a partner to manage training means you get the most impactful, yet time-efficient experience with hand-picked lessons. Exercises can be less than five minutes each to enable your employees to complete training between calls.
6. Track it (and not just for audit or compliance purposes).
Make sure there are engaging quizzes included with each security awareness training video your employees are assigned to watch. Follow up with employees as needed based on their assessment scores. While it is best practice to assign security awareness training to all employees, in some positions and industries, additional training may be required. Use assessment results to identify individual gaps and follow up with more tailored content accordingly. This is another area in which having a managed security partner can be helpful.
7. Set the example.
If your goal is to build a culture of security, it starts at the top. Leadership should take all assigned training and continually vocalize what they have learned to their teams.
Download: Free Cybersecurity Guide
Your Employees Are Your First Line of Defense
There are numerous opportunities to prevent cyberattacks, including implementing the right technology and security awareness solutions. The goal is to put barriers in place at every potential opening.
Make your employees the first line of defense against data and reputation loss by prioritizing ongoing training. This will empower your team to be good security stewards and promote a strong security culture across departments and roles.
To learn more about keeping your information safe, subscribe to our blog today.
