Building a Cybersecurity Awareness Program
1h 22mIntermediate2024-01-03
Authors

Lauren Zink
Information Security Professional, Educator
Course details
By implementing a security awareness and culture program, you can turn people into assets—an extension of your security team—instead of possible easier targets for cybercriminals. A truly robust and mature security program makes educating employees a top priority in a company's overall multilayered approach. In this course, Lauren Zink shows how to develop and implement a successful, ongoing security awareness and culture program that's so much more than just one phishing simulation or an annual required training. True security awareness necessitates year-round, relevant, and tailored training and communications that create an overall cultural shift in behaviors you can measure. Through this course, discover how to sketch out your program plan, create a budget, leverage creative approaches for keeping your employees engaged, and assess the effectiveness of your program.
Skills covered
Security AwarenessProject LeadershipIncident ResponseProject ManagementCybersecurityOne-Off
Concepts
0. Introduction
- 01 - Discover cybersecurity awareness
- 02 - Defining security awareness - Going beyond the training to behavior and culture
1. Understanding the Current Security Awareness Foundation
- 03 - Getting to know your collaborators and partners
- 04 - Learning you company policies, standards, and guidelines
- 05 - Gauging the baseline knowledge of your audience and their appetite for security as well as baselining the risks
2. Developing a Solid Awareness Plan
- 06 - Developing a program plan and identifying resources needed
- 07 - Program plan creation demonstration
- 08 - Creating a budget
3. Implementing and Communicating the Security Awareness Program
- 09 - Creating brand recognition for security
- 10 - Introducing the program and communicating the why
- 11 - Developing a training plan
- 12 - Leveraging champions, ambassadors, and liaisons
4. Engaging Employees with Ongoing Awareness Initiatives
- 13 - Getting creative to reach your audience
- 14 - Communication is key to reaching your audience
- 15 - Social engineering simulations for experiential training
- 16 - Holding large-scale events
5. Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Security Awareness Program
- 17 - Measuring impact and behavior change
- 18 - Communicating the impact and building the team
Conclusion
- 19 - Next steps - Maturing and adjusting the program over time
Related courses
- Building a Cybersecurity Awareness Program (2019)
- Raising Cybersecurity Awareness through Phishing Simulations
- Mental Health Awareness for Cybersecurity Professionals
- Cybersecurity Awareness: Cybersecurity Terminology
- Microsoft Cybersecurity Business Professional by Microsoft Press
- Security Tips: Browsing the Web
- Learning the OWASP Top 10 (2025 Version)
- CyberSec First Responder (CFR-310)
Related learn paths
- CISO Leadership: Managing a Cybersecurity Program
- Build Your Cybersecurity Awareness Skills
- Applying AI as a Tech Leader
- Mastering Responsible AI: From Concept to Auditing
- Prepare for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-601) Certification Exam
- Prepare for the ISC2 Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP) Exam
- Career Essentials in Cybersecurity by Microsoft and LinkedIn
- Build an Enterprise Cloud Architecture