Will training save your business from a cyber attack?

The World Economic forum recently investigated how organisations and people can pull together to deal with the growing threat of cyber crime. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/why-closing-the-cybersecurity-skills-gap-starts-from-the-top/. The report suggests one of the prime, protective actions organisations can take is appropriate employee training. 

All employees need to be trained in cyber awareness but even the best awareness programme won't prevent every attack, so you also need specialists to prevent, detect, assess and resolve cyber threats. You can hire from outside but cyber security specialists are almost 100% employed and take about 50% longer to hire than other technical specialists, so training internally is a better option.

The World Economic Forum indicates getting budget for training initiatives can still be difficult because it's not always easy to measure the return on investment of training so one suggestion is for organisations to train using through free resources. 

As learning experts we'd like to offer a different perspective. 

Whilst free resources are cheap how does a busy Chief Information Officer (CIO) or technical team assess valuable resources against inferior ones? They are technology experts and not learning experts. It's simply not enough to have access to content because you can waste a lot of time and money in searching for the right information with such high risk stakes.

Even if you find good content how is it turned into actionable knowledge and skills? Just reading an article or watching a video is not learning. If yourFirst Aider learned through Youtube videos would you want them practising on you in an emergency? When a cyber attack happens do you want your security manager checking on Youtube what to do? That knowledge and those skills need to be immediately available to reduce the damage from the attack. 

It turns out it's not just what you do but what you don't do that matters when you discover a breach and only people with experience and skills can critically assess which actions are "dos" and which are "don'ts" in any given threat situation. Just like emergency crews cybersecurity professionals need to think clearly and act under pressure. 

So you can use free training resources but with a cyber attack costing on average of $13 million is that a good balance of risk? Effective training programmes are specifically designed by learning experts in collaboration with subject matter experts to guarantee experienced based content plus the guaranteed transfer of that knowledge into skills acquisition. Training designed with both the learner and the organisational needs in mind provides a measurable return on investment; delivering specialists who can assess critically and take the right action quickly.

At Stellar Labs stakeholders and participants set measurable outcomes from the start. We track progress and our expert mentors from Cyber4Z step in to personalise the learning. Brain based activities and exercises in learning labs bring theories to life; making them 'sticky' and memorable. Participants are challenged, guided and supported with work based activities and real practice opportunities plus valuable feedback from experts to perfect their skills. They don't leave the programme with a set of theories but with real experience and use-able skills; which is what you need in an emergency. 

This comprehensive programme starts 11th March 2020 so check out the website for full details www.stellarlabs.eu\dlt\cybersecurity