Securing Your Data: Here’s What Your Training Program Needs to Cover

For many years, businesses and organizations have gone to great lengths to protect their sensitive data by using a variety of different techniques and protocols. These protocols usually try to achieve a few main things. These can include:

• Training employees to spot threats
• Training employees how to respond to threats
• Altering office practices to ones that promote greater security of data



While many of these efforts have been successful, some unfortunately continue to allow information to land in the wrong hands. While there can be several factors behind a failed data security policy, one of the easiest and most effective areas to address that can minimize the chance of failure is the training and implementation of the policy.

Proper Training Is Key to Ensuring the Success of Your Data Security Policy

One of the most important ways to ensuring that any data security protocol is effective is to make sure that the training and communication steps are thought out, and comprehensive. No policy can be effective when employees don’t know about it, understand it, or appreciate the importance of it.

The training program needs to be designed to relay the importance of the policy, as well as the policy itself. Here are some ideas to consider when putting together your training program:

• Use clear and concise language. In addition to reducing employee confusion and frustration during the training process, this can help employees gain a thorough and better understanding of the policy altogether.
• Explain the laws to your staff. Employees need to know why this policy is happening, as well as why it’s important. Making it clear that there is a legal drive behind the creation of the policy can help drive home it’s importance to employees.
• Make sure to cover web-based security threats. Many threats that employees face directly occur online through emails or web browsing. Help your employees learn how to spot phishing attempts, and be sure to include safe browsing tips for easy and effective assistance in mitigating these risks.
• Consider including a clean desk policy in your training program. Clean desk policies ensure that employee desks and computer monitors are left devoid of any paper or electronic documents. The idea is that this ensures that secure documents are always kept out of plain site, and that information is better organized for easy retrieval when it is next needed.
• Consider implementing a shred-all policy. Shred-all policies require all documents to be secure destroyed before making their way into the recycling bin. The benefit is that all documents that are disposed can never be used to recover sensitive information once destroyed.

Starting Out Strong Can Make All the Difference Between Success and Failure

A successful data security program requires careful thought and execution right from the beginning. Make sure your organization can secure its data effectively by designing your training program carefully and implementing it with clarity and comprehension in mind.

Be sure to include a secure shredding solution in your data security plan. Security Shredding has been serving businesses in the valley since 1973, we offer a wide range of shredding services suited to fit the unique security needs of your business.

Talk to us today to find out more and get started!