Fortinet research reveals that nearly 70% of companies say their employees lack fundamental security awareness

THE Fortinet, a global cybersecurity company that drives network and security convergence, today launched its 2024 Global Cybersecurity Awareness and Training Survey, highlighting the crucial role a cyber-aware workforce plays in managing and mitigating organizational risks.

Key findings from the global survey include:

• As malicious actors use AI to increase the volume and speed of their attacks, leaders believe these threats will be harder for their employees to detect. 

More than 60% of respondents expect more employees to fall victim to attacks where cybercriminals use AI. However, the good news is that most respondents (80%) also claim that company-wide knowledge of AI-enhanced attacks has made their organizations more open to implementing security awareness and training.

• Employees can be the first line of defense for an organization, but leaders are increasingly concerned about their employees' lack of awareness of security. 

Nearly 70% of respondents believe their employees lack critical cybersecurity knowledge, up from 56% in 2023.

• Leaders recognize the importance of safety awareness training, but believe that specific attributes make some training programs more effective than others. 

More than half of leaders say they plan their security awareness campaigns by delivering content monthly (34%) or quarterly (47%). Executives also point out that high-quality content plays a major role in the success or failure of the program.

“As threat actors leverage new technologies like AI to increase the sophistication of their attacks, it is increasingly crucial for employees to act as a robust first line of defense.Fortinet's new research underscores the importance of creating a cybersecurity culture and the need to establish security awareness and training across the organization.These findings underscore the importance of our award-winning enterprise security awareness and training service, including the free educational version available to elementary and high schools around the world, and its role in strengthening the” cyber resilience John Maddison, Chief Marketing Officer, Fortinet.

The latest threats employees must address:

One of the main ways cybercriminals use AI is to make phishing schemes more reliable and harder to detect. Since phishing targets individual users directly, organizations are heavily focused on teaching employees to recognize and avoid falling victim to these attacks.

• End users remain attractive targets. More than 80% of organizations they faced attacks last year such as malware, phishing and password attacks that directly targeted individuals.

• As attacks evolve, security awareness and training will become increasingly vital. Almost all (96%) respondents state that their leadership team supports employee safety awareness training.

• Almost all respondents (98%) say that phishing prevention is a component of their training programs and plans. Other training priorities include data security (48%) and privacy (41%).

Employees can act as a strong first line of defense against attacks

While security and IT teams are crucial to protecting organizations from cyber threats, employees at a company also play an important role in preventing breaches.

• Employees are open to opportunities for cybersecurity awareness and training. Most leaders (86%) say their employees view safety awareness and training positively.

• Organizations see positive results when they implement safety and awareness training programs. The overwhelming majority of leaders (89%) claim that their organization saw at least some improvement in their security posture after implementing security awareness and training.

Cyber awareness training is vital, but not all programs are created equal:

Most organizations are motivated to introduce security training and awareness based on their breach experience or knowledge of threats in their industry and/or industry. Almost all decision makers (96%) say their leadership team supports implementing training to raise employee awareness of cybersecurity.

According to this year's survey, 97% of leaders believe that increasing employee awareness would strengthen the company's cybersecurity posture.However, respondents also agree that there are key attributes of training programs that are important for effectiveness.

• Attractive content is key. While 86% of decision makers say they are satisfied with their current security awareness and training solution, the biggest complaint was the lack of engaging content among those who are not satisfied.

• Consider the time of dedication required. Avoid training fatigue considering the amount of time required of students. Requiring too much time from employees can overload them. Between 1.1 and 2 hours is the most common time proposed, averaging three hours.

Develop a cyber-aware workforce with Fortinet's security awareness and training service:

A single breach incident has significant repercussions for a business.It is vital to build a three-pronged defence strategy that includes security awareness and training for all employees, cybersecurity technical skills for IT and security staff, and advanced security solutions for the network.  

In addition to teaching people what to do when they encounter threats, awareness and training lays the foundation for creating an organization-wide cybersecurity culture security awareness and training service designed by Fortinet Training Institute world-class instructors, this service covers a wide variety of topics, provides opportunities for content customization, and reinforces learnings with reminders and periodic checks.Organizations using the service also have access to a variety of dashboards to track student progress and generate reports to meet cyber insurance and compliance needs.