Cybersecurity Training for Employees: How To Make It Effective

You may have installed the most sophisticated protection systems for your company’s network on the market. You might rigorously test new applications for potential security flaws. You may routinely update your operating systems and software to the latest, most secure versions. But your company could still be one of more than 30% of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) victimized by cyberattacks this year, according to VikingCloud's 2025 SMB Threat Landscape Report.

Why? The most likely reason is that you haven’t addressed the biggest single source of cyber breaches: the people who work for you. According to multiple surveys, human error is responsible for 74% to 95% of cyber breaches, and the weak link could be anywhere in your organization. Cybersecurity firm Mimecast found that 80% of security incidents are caused by just 8% of workers. Without cybersecurity training for employees, your business is still vulnerable to data breaches, phishing scams, and other cyberattacks.

Read on for a look at why cybersecurity awareness training is important for businesses of all sizes, and how you can use employee awareness training to prevent all kinds of cyberthreats.

What is cybersecurity training for employees?

Cybersecurity training educates you and your staff on how to recognize cyber threats. That way, you can avoid falling prey to attacks that compromise your business, your customer/company data, or your financial accounts. Common cyber threats include phishing emails that dupe unsuspecting employees into clicking on malicious links, and insecure passwords that attackers use to access sensitive information.

Cybersecurity awareness is not just something your IT department needs to worry about. Cyber threats target everyone in your organization, especially your least technologically sophisticated employees. For example:

• Your customer service representatives could be fooled by social engineering attacks, in which a caller tricks them into allowing unauthorized access to sensitive systems.

• Your marketing team could be attacked by cyber criminals looking to take over your social media accounts to scam your customers or damage your brand.

• Anyone with direct access to your company's finances is a target for deepfake scams. This is where attackers use AI to impersonate top executives to authorize bogus wire transfers—sometimes for millions of dollars.

Fortunately, employee training solutions are available that can help everyone in your organization avoid being victimized by such attacks.

What an effective cybersecurity training program covers

• Phishing, vishing, and other social engineering attacks
• Password security and multifactor authentication
• How to protect sensitive information
• Secure ways to use network and mobile devices
• Safely deploying third-party applications
• Spotting potential financial fraud
• What to do if you think you’ve been breached

The range and sophistication of cybersecurity threats increase every year. Businesses need to make sure their employees are aware of the latest tactics employed by attackers, as well as stay up to speed on how to react if they believe they’ve been compromised.

An effective cybersecurity awareness training program should include the following topics:

Phishing, vishing, and other social engineering attacks

Social engineering attacks are the most common way attackers gain access to computer systems, accounting for more than a third of all intrusions. In most social engineering attacks, victims are duped into clicking on a malicious link in an email or persuaded to give out sensitive information over the phone, allowing attackers to steal their data and access their accounts.

Good security awareness training helps you and your employees identify attacks using fake emails (phishing), voice calls (vishing), and SMS texts (smishing). It teaches them to spot suspicious sources, urgent or threatening language, unexpected attachments, or pleas for help with access credentials or financial assistance. 

Password security and multifactor authentication

At a minimum, users should be taught how to create strong, unique passwords for each site or service. Ideally, you use password management software that helps you create long, hard-to-guess passwords and stores them so you don’t have to remember each one. Employees also need to learn how to deploy multifactor authentication. This is where users take an additional step (such as entering a numeric code sent via text or an authentication app) before accessing sensitive systems.

For example, Shopify’s two-step authentication adds an extra security layer to prevent unauthorized access. Even if attackers obtain or guess an employee’s password, they will still be unable to access your store’s admin accounts. To use Shopify Payments to accept payments also requires you to activate two-step authentication on your Shopify account.

How to protect sensitive information

Safeguarding your data prevents breaches that can harm your business’s reputation and lose customer trust. Employees need to know where this information lives, who is allowed to access it, and how to protect company data. They must also understand any datacomplianceregulations that apply to their industry to avoid potential penalties. They should also be taught not to store sensitive company data on personal devices or unauthorized cloud services.

Secure ways to use network and mobile devices

Employees need to understand how to maintain proper account security when logging onto company systems from a laptop or other mobile device. This includes how to use a VPN when accessing systems via a public Wi-Fi network. They may also need training in how to identify malicious websites, avoid risky downloads, and resist clicking unsafe links. 

Safely deploying third-party applications

Many small businesses rely on a collection of third-party apps that integrate with their internal ecommerce systems—shipping tools, reviews platforms, accounting software, and so on. Security awareness training should cover the risk of installing apps or browser extensions that haven’t been fully vetted by you or your company’s information security team. Insecure third-party tools can potentially lead to attackers stealing your data or harming your brand’s reputation.

Spotting potential financial fraud

Business email compromise (BEC) fraud—where attackers impersonate company executives to trick employees into transferring money—costs US businesses more than $3 billion annually, according to the FBI. Employees with access to financial accounts need to know how to respond when faced with unexpected demands for money or changes in standard payment protocols.

What to do if you think you’ve been breached

How quickly your company responds to an incident impacts how much damage the attack will inflict. Yet every year, nearly half of all successful cyber attacks go unreported due to fear of personal repercussions, failure to identify suspicious activity, or not knowing whom to report it to. Cybersecurity awareness training can help foster a culture where employees feel comfortable admitting they clicked on something suspicious or did something they shouldn’t have. 

Best practices for cybersecurity training

It’s one thing to implement cybersecurity training for employees, but quite another to make sure that employees can remember and apply what they’ve learned. Here are some commonly accepted best practices for your training program:

• Keep it short, simple, and frequent. Regular but brief training sessions covering a particular aspect of security awareness are far more effective than marathon sessions detailing every potential cyber threat.

• Stay relevant to employees’ roles. Your customer service team needs to know how to thwart phishing and vishing attacks, but not necessarily how to identify social media takeover attempts. Employees will stay more engaged with training that applies to their daily workflows.

• Make it visually appealing.Multiple studies have shown that video training is far more effective at improving retention than lectures or plain text course materials. Walking employees through real-world scenarios that show how phishing or wire fraud scams operate can be memorable and effective.

• Run simulated tests. Randomly testing teams by sending out faux phishing emails can identify the 8% of employees who are responsible for 80% of security incidents. This allows you to devote more cybersecurity training time to them.

• Avoid the shame game. Creating a culture where employees are encouraged to report suspicious behavior is key to both mitigating emerging threats and a good way to know your training is working. Establishing clear, easy-to-use reporting channels is key.

• Consider outsourcing cybersecurity training. Few small business owners have the expertise to train their employees on every aspect of cybersecurity. Hiring a firm that specializes in cyber training can help ensure your business and your data remain safe.

Every employee has an important role to play in maintaining a secure working environment. Cybersecurity awareness training can make sure you and your employees know what to do.