Traditional awareness campaigns and occasional workshops are no longer enough to mitigate the risks of social engineering-based cyber attacks. Today, organisations need to take more strategic approaches to training and awareness, and they must run continuous campaigns to keep users aware of cyber risk.
This is according to Anna Collard, SVP Content Strategy and Evangelist Africa at KnowBe4, who was speaking ahead of KnowBe4’s second annual KB4-CON conference for EMEA, which gets under way next month.
Collard notes that social engineering remains a top attack method. “The 2021 KnowBe4-ITWeb Ransomware Survey found that 32% of respondents had fallen victim to ransomware, with social engineering being the top root cause of ransomware gaining a foothold in these environments,” she says. “Training and awareness are very important in addressing the human firewall vulnerabilities that make social engineering such low-hanging fruit for attackers.”
A recent KnowBe4-ITWeb Cyber Stress & Cyber Wellness survey in South Africa found that 52% of survey respondents attributed security mistakes to a lack of training, and 71% said more security training and 53% said in-the-moment training could help improve security culture.
“Training and awareness are crucial for mitigating cyber risk, but organisations need to make sure their training programmes actually motivate users to change their behaviour,” Collard says.
KB4-CON EMEA will address the human firewall weaknesses, looking at new approaches to training and awareness, and how to effectively build a security culture within an organisation.
Among the speakers will be Javvad Malik, Lead Security Awareness Advocate at KnowBe4, who will explain how storytelling helps build a strong cyber security culture, and Jelle Wieringa, Security Awareness Advocate EMEA at KnowBe4, who will offer actionable insights on how to foster motivation and participation as well as what key fundamentals a security awareness programme needs to include.
Jeff Gelinas, KMSAT Product Manager at KnowBe4, will unveil game-changing technology to address risky security behaviour and coach users in real-time.
Jacqueline Jayne, Security Awareness Advocate APAC at KnowBe4, will outline tried and true methods to communicate cyber security effectively in the organisation and how to assist users to progress from learning to behaviour change.
KB4-CON EMEA will be staged on 6 October. For more information, and to register for this free online event, go to https://www.knowbe4.com/kb4-con-emea.
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