Cyber security training

Our organization has defined procedures for maintaining staff's cyber security awareness.These may include e.g. the following things:

• staff receive instructions describing the general guidelines of digital security related to their job role
• staff receive training to maintain the appropriate digital and cyber security skills and knowledge required for the job role
• staff demonstrate through tests that they have the security skills and knowledge required for the job role

Training should focus on the most relevant security aspects for each job role and include often enough the basics, which concern all employees:

• employee's personal security responsibilities (e.g. for devices and processed data)
• policies relevant for everyone (e.g. security incident reporting)
• guidelines relevant for everyone (e.g. clean desk)
• organization's security roles (who to contact with problems)

A log is kept of the cyber security training events provided by the organization to its staff. The log can be used to show what kind of specific investments the organization has made towards staff's cyber security expertise.

For each training the documentation should include:

• Time
• Topics and duration of the training
• Training method and trainer
• Staff involved in the training

The organization needs to remind employees of their roles and security responsibilities. The reminder reinforces staff security awareness, safe practices and compliance with guidelines and legal requirements related to their job role.

Before granting access rights to data systems with confidential information employees have:

• received appropriate guidance on their security responsibilities (including reporting responsibilities and responsibility for their own devices)
• received appropriate guidance on their security roles related to their own role (including digital security rules related to their role and information systems and their acceptable use)
• received information from cyber security contacts who can be asked for more information

The effectiveness of cyber security training is regularly evaluated. The evaluation may include e.g. the following perspectives:

• Is the competence of the staff deep enough?
• Are the training methods and amounts correct?
• Are different units trained in the right things?
• Is the staff motivated to learn?
• Does the staff understand the reasons for the training (e.g. what kind of negative effects can a cyber security breach have?

By informing the units on the most important cyber security issues for them and in the language they understand, great strides can be made at the level of cyber security as staff have a better understanding of why different policies and rules apply. Informing can include distributing cyber guidelines in small chunks, various campaigns (e.g. “Security Day”), leaflets, newsletters, competitions or other similar elements.

Security informing may also be referred to as an "awareness program".

Training arranged before granting access rights applies not only to new employees but also to those who move to new tasks or roles, especially when the data systems used by the person and the security requirements related to the job role change significantly with the change of job role. The training is arranged before the new job role becomes active.

Our organization has defined procedures and responsibilities for protecting systems from malware and trains staff to use the protections and to report and recover from malware attacks.