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Why your MSP should be offering a cybersecurity awareness training platform

Today’s cybersecurity landscape is continually shifting and changing. The number of cyber-attacks has increased globally and the complexity of these attacks has grown. In response, cybersecurity technologies have risen to the challenge of finding these complex attacks. In this context, it can be easy to think that MSPs only need to provide the right technology to protect their clients’ networks. But this approach tends to overlook the one common and frequent source of vulnerability in a business’s IT environment - the employees accessing the network.

Research shows that most data breaches involve human interaction. This broad term includes any attack that involves social action, such as phishing, business email compromise, lost/stolen credentials, insecure credentials, human error or misuse, or malware that is clicked on.

In this climate, it is important to remember cybersecurity is about securing the organization and the people within it. While security tools are an important element of managed security services, it is only one line of defense. A robust cybersecurity awareness program is an essential part of any comprehensive cybersecurity initiative and will go a long way toward reducing security risks and cyber threats.

Why should your MSP offer cybersecurity training?

Unfortunately, employees are often the weakest link in an organization when it comes to being targeted by phishing emails, as they are less likely to pick up on there being something wrong than security professionals who are trained to recognize a data breach attempt.

Social engineering attacks are created to trick employees into divulging sensitive information or clicking on malicious links. Common tactics cybercriminals use to trick employees into giving away sensitive data include posing as a vendor and requesting payment information, pretending to be from IT and requesting remote access, or pretending to be an executive and requesting a wire transfer.

MSPs can improve their clients’ experience by highlighting the multitude of advantages of security awareness training as part of a comprehensive service package. Offering a security awareness training program allows clients to track training outcomes, so they can see their progress and better understand their return on investment. Well-developed training programs can also be used to focus on application-specific content to complement the business’ specific needs.

Upon completion of the training, MSPs have gained insight into network behavior and security incidents to help them pinpoint crucial areas for additional training, and which users require more interventions by using phishing simulation and other network monitoring technologies.

The ultimate security stack

Security awareness is the first line of defense

A cybersecurity awareness program should be comprehensive and accessible, so it is simple to use and encourages engagement and learning.

Improve security awareness

Security awareness emphasizes the importance of upholding end-user security best practices as the greatest defense against cyber threats. Employees should be educated not to respond to suspicious emails, particularly if they ask for personal information, or click on unknown links. Even though these precautions might seem simple, a recently released study found that 90% of cloud corporate data breaches were caused by employees being tricked by social engineering.

Emphasize compliance

The nature of your customers' business might require them to adhere to strict IT security protocols. Healthcare, finance, education, and other sectors are routinely inspected by industry-wide auditors to ensure data protection measures are properly in place. Organizations can be required to pass security audits to maintain good standing and avoid hefty penalties. When a customer is assessed for security, the ability to prevent a security breach might be critical.

Phishing simulations

Online platforms that provide phishing simulations can discover how deep an organization’s knowledge of security best practices goes. These simulations can determine employee awareness of scams if they see one and allow client organizations to know how well their users are prepared for phishing attacks.

Best cyber awareness

Robust cybersecurity education cannot be underestimated in terms of importance for your MSP clients, as it helps them to become aware of cybersecurity risks and supports them in adopting new technology, policies, and procedures. Security awareness programs provide valuable business advantages and protection and should be an essential part of an MSP's comprehensive security stack.

ThreatAdvice Cybersecurity Education, an essential component of the ThreatAdvice Breach Prevention Platform, includes video-based courses, testing, and gamification as well as phishing simulations and tracking of employee progress. Talk to ThreatAdvice today and leverage your MSP security training offerings with this sophisticated education platform.

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