Your team is resistant to cybersecurity training. How can you make them see its vital importance?

You do not fight the resistance, you try to understand the reasons behind it. Training needs to be tailor made to each individual, respecting his/her culture, needs, worries, academic background and experience. Include your personnel into the training material selection process, let them be an important part of the process. Only then your team will embrace the training process and become a herald of cybersecurity training.

Understanding the resistance within teams towards cybersecurity training is crucial. One effective approach could be illustrating real-world scenarios where such knowledge could protect valuable assets. Highlighting the direct impact on team efficiency and overall company resilience could help bridge the gap and emphasize the vital importance of cybersecurity awareness. Integrating interactive sessions and case studies could also foster a more engaging learning environment, encouraging active participation and understanding among team members.

One strategy for overcoming this kind of resistance is to show how real the risk is. A pentest involving a phishing campaign and social engineering are good alternatives for demonstrating the outcome of a successful attack

**Cybersecurity training** is **crucial** for teams, and here's why: 1. **Risk Reduction**: Training equips teams with skills to **identify and avoid threats**, reducing the risk of data breaches. 2. **Financial Protection**: Cyber incidents can be costly. Training helps safeguard against financial losses. 3. **Legal Compliance**: It ensures your team meets legal requirements and avoids penalties. 4. **Reputation Safeguard**: Proper training protects your company's reputation. 5. **Cultural Shift**: Creating a culture of security encourages vigilance and best practices. 6. **Boosts Morale**: Staff confidence increases when they feel prepared and knowledgeable. Note, cybersecurity is everyone's responsibility!

Interactive trainings are better remembered. Cybersecurity trainings must be in easy-to-understand language and ideally relate to real-life situations that reflect daily work. In addition to mandatory training, there should be an offer of optional information such as newsletters, videos, games, etc. to promote variety. This training can then be accompanied by targeted simulations (e.g. phishing). It is also essential to establish an error culture that encourages people to report errors and weaknesses.

Offer role-based training. Executives require a different training (format) than all employees, for example. HR employees require different sensitization than IT administrators. Training should ideally be designed according to the risk profile of the users.

Showing past incidents and how they were dealt with can help to establish a close practical connection. Raising awareness in the private sphere also helps to ensure that employees are better trained in their working environment, which is why the private aspects and dangers of cyber incidents should also be pointed out when raising awareness. This promotes a holistic view by employees/users.

Repetition, repetition and repetition. The topic of cyber security needs to be brought to mind again and again without creating cyber security fatigue. This can only be achieved by making cyber training interactive, varied and target group-specific.