According to a study conducted by a Axelos, a company with strong ties to the UK government, the awareness regarding business security is pretty limited in England. The research conclusion stated that the cyber security awareness learning provided by most UK organizations is not ‘fit for purpose’ and is limiting employees’ ability to understand what good cyber behaviors look like. The organisational attitude towards security issues is, at the moment, one-dimensional and outdated.

The study surprisingly discovered that, often, the management is aware of the rising threat level regarding security issues, but only few managers are tailoring the learning to actual cases. “Despite the almost universal belief (99%) among senior managers that information security awareness training is important to minimizing cyber security breaches, less than half that number (47%) are tailoring the learning to the jobs their people do.”, the research concluded.

According to the survey, only 31% of the managers questioned stated that they use simulated phishing for business security. This is an inexpensive way to train the employees in avoiding one of the most efficient security attacks. For example, an average cost of a phishing attack is more than 3.75 million dollars.

The simulated phishing training technique is being used in over 70% of the US companies, over double than the UK standard.

Even though there are certain applications that work like security walls for phishing attacks, they are not 100% secure. The most reliable way of protecting sensible data is to train the employees to avoid malicious emails and links.

Simulated phish training is important for business security. It trains staff, it highlights staff who may need additional training, and it provides automatic ‘training points’ for staff who fail the test.

“With a behavioral conditioning program, organizations can check staff’s awareness by simulating attacks, congratulating success and provide follow-up materials for those found vulnerable. This reinforcement, provided at the point of susceptibility, will be far more memorable than a click-through training session or booklet received out of context. Conditioning employees to act as human sensors will greatly reduce the organization’s attack surface”, one of the security specialist stated.