Human error is often the weak link in security due to a lack of awareness on the employee’s part about the consequences of improper actions, and how that ultimately impacts the system as a whole. Security awareness is a critical component to reducing the incidents of security breaches or breakdowns, but is commonly overlooked. Security awareness programs effective strategy to raise the awareness of employees and their role in making certain a comprehensive understanding of security policies and the ramifications of their actions on overall security.
Employees should be educated on a policy’s basic components and their benefits to the organization. It’s important for security awareness training to be developed and disseminated differently within the organization. There are three distinct groups that security awareness training should be administered to: end users, data handlers and management.
The three doctrines of Security Awareness are Awareness, Training and Education. Security awareness is the collective awareness among company members about the critical need and value of security and security controls. When personnel demonstrate a coherent understanding of security, they’re deemed “security aware.”
Training programs are designed to instruct users on specific skills and are conducted in a classroom environment or can be implemented through individualized training. Security training is conducted over a short period.
