According to the National Cyber Security Alliance, 60 percent of small and midsized businesses that are hacked go out of business within six months. In addition, a Verizon data breach report from 2021 found that 85% of data breaches were due to the “human element”.

Seems logical that businesses would prioritize an investment into cyber awareness training for employees to ensure that their overall cyber incident footprint is reduced. Most businesses must still be convinced about the benefits of cyber awareness training.

Here are five reason to consider otherwise:

  1. Prevent Attacks – Employees all too often give the bad actors access to company systems. Training employees on what to look for won’t prevent every issue, but regular training has been shown to reduce risk to less than 5% in just the first year according to KnowBe4.
  2. Reputation – Reputational damage is often thought to be the biggest cost of a security incident.
  3. Build a Culture – Employees are more likely to put an action plan in place if they understand that they can directly prevent a cyber-attack.
  4. Meet Compliance – All compliance standards require cyber awareness training.
  5. Save Money – Plain and simple: breaches are expensive. For $15-$20 per employee per year, cyber awareness training is a drop in the bucket compared to the six to seven figure cost per breach, not to mention the amount of business downtime, and loss of existing and new business due to reputation loss.

 

Cyber awareness training is a critical component of a strong cybersecurity stance. Businesses that have not taken cyber awareness training seriously should consider their options to improve their overall security, reputation, compliance, and culture.

About Epsilon, Inc.

Epsilon, Inc. is a Service-Disabled, Veteran-Owned Small Business with its headquarters in Weaverville, NC and offices in Greenville, SC and Washington, DC. Since 2009, Epsilon has endeavored to make adoption of new technologies efficient, scalable, cost effective, and secure for both government and commercial customers. Over 100 businesses and multiple government agencies trust Epsilon to manage the Information Technology functions of their organization.