4 Benefits of Insider Risk Training

When it comes to security awareness training, we’re all aware of the company-wide phishing tests and annual policy acknowledgments. While these types of trainings are necessary, there are more effective ways to engage your employees to ensure they are learning how to properly manage and protect data. This is why Insider Risk training is an important addition to a security awareness training strategy.

Insider Risk occurs when any data exposure (regardless of perceived data value or user intent) jeopardizes the well-being of an organization and its employees, customers, or partners. In short, it’s a data protection problem which can be mitigated with an Insider Risk Management (IRM) program. A well executed IRM program must include Insider Risk training to teach users how to handle company data appropriately. This includes considerations before moving it out of your trusted environment. 

Let’s dive into 4 benefits of integrating Insider Risk training into your security awareness program. 

1. Reduce security events

Insider Risk training enables you to proactively provide the information users need on how to correctly handle data and to correct errors in near real-time when they’ve put data at risk. This reduces accidents, errors and, let’s face it - alerts. As users learn from their security mistakes and put their learnings into practice, the security team should see a reduction in the amount of minor security events so they can focus their time and attention on malicious or high-severity events. 

2. Develop a proactive mindset

Best practices for handling data will vary from company to company and from role to role. By implementing Insider Risk training, users will inherently become more proactive when it comes to how they handle data. Users are known to forget what company policies teach them about which data is theirs and what belongs to your company - or their previous company. With today’s technology (i.e. Code42’s Incydr™), the security team can view data that is exfiltrated and can address it before the data walks out the door. The benefit of Insider Risk training is that it can be integrated with this technology in order to send tailored videos for non-malicious exfiltration events.  Some key use cases for this proactive mindset include:

• onboarding new employees
• role or department changes, which can be used as an opportunity to train employees on how to handle the data connected to their new role moving forward 

3. Reinforce safe collaboration

Insider Risk training is needed now more than ever. Employees are more likely to collaborate across the globe from the couch in their living room than ever before. This means they may be more fatigued than usual and may combine work and personal tasks throughout their day. They’re more likely to be interrupted by the modern day “coworker” who either walks on four legs or would normally be in pre-school. This may lead to taking the quickest route from point A to point B when it comes to getting data to where they need it quickly – not necessarily securely. When something like this occurs, an Insider Risk video lesson can be sent in near real-time educating the user on what they did wrong and what platforms your company uses in order to collaborate and share data.

4. Drive secure work habits through a risk-aware workforce

Insider Risk training has not traditionally been included in most security awareness programs; it goes beyond simply checking a compliance box. Traditional security awareness programs tend to be high-level and your employees need more specific guidance when it comes to where data should live and how it should be shared. Compared to previous Insider Risk trainings that asked employees to recognize and report insider risk indicators observed in their colleagues, today’s Insider Risk training is different because it presumes positive intent, which in turn shows users that they can learn from their mistakes and become more risk-aware in the future. 

While security awareness training is paramount to any security and risk strategy, Insider Risk training takes it a step further by providing education in real-time, encouraging behavioral changes right when it is most impactful. This in turn creates a positive security culture at your organization while also mitigating Insider Risk incidents.

Interested in incorporating Insider Risk training into your security stack? Check out Code42 Instructor™, employee education tailor-made for Insider Risk.