The vast majority of mistakes leading to breached data are accidental and caused by human error. What are the best ways to train employees to handle PII and build unshakable security awareness?
The Greatest Liability: Us
Nobody’s perfect. Even if you have 20+ years of experience in data security and breach prevention, you can still slip up and make a mistake. And if that statement’s true, just imagine the amount of risk presented by untrained and oblivious employees.
Researchers from Stanford University discovered that nearly 90% of data leaks are caused by human error. And that makes every single one of these potentially catastrophic instances 100% avoidable. With the right employee training on how to handle and secure Personal Identifiable Information (PII), you can effectively eliminate the highest risk to your stored data almost overnight.
Understanding PII
Before your workforce can hope to spot things like phishing attacks and unauthorized access attempts, you have to start at square one. It may seem like common knowledge, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t even know what PII is. And statistically speaking, some of these people are working at your company right now…
By the end of Day 1 of your employee training, you’ll want a room full of PII-spotting hawks capable of recognizing and classifying all kinds of data. In short, you’ll need to teach your workers the definition and significance of PII and show them examples, including everything from SSN and credit card info to medical and financial records.
We’ve actually prepared some excellent materials precisely for this purpose. In our articles The Complete Guide to PII and PII Examples, you’ll find all the information necessary to teach a beginner’s course on understanding PII and even provide employees with hands-on experience by identifying the PII examples.
Best Practices
Once everyone can spot any instances of PII from a mile away, it’s time to introduce the best practices for secure data handling. Now, every company is different, so there are going to be procedures that apply to some and not to others.
The goal for this second phase of your employee training is to educate everyone present on how your business collects, stores, and protects data. This can include how you deploy data encryption, limit access to certain storages, apply transmission protocols, and so on.
But many best practices in PII security can apply to pretty much any company. Every employee needs to understand and utilize strong passwords (hopefully with multi-factor authentication) and be aware of the regulations applicable to their region or client base (GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, etc.).
Lastly, one of the simplest practices to teach at employee training is how to spot unauthorized access. If an employee is working on a specialized project, they should know exactly who is on the team and who has access to what. They also need to know what to do if they spot suspicious activity or evidence of an intruder (like telling their superior immediately).
Recognize and Respond to Security Threats
In that same vein of PII protection and general awareness, you’ll want to run your employees through a “worst-case scenario” of what to do during a data link or crisis of any kind. You can do this by training employees to identify common security threats, including phishing emails, social engineering attacks, and PII-compromising malware.
Imagine how beneficial it would be to have your entire workforce acting like a second pair of eyes, keeping a lookout for anything phishy (excuse the pun). Then you can educate them on clear steps and procedures for reporting anything they see.
This is a great way to empower employees to take prompt action to mitigate risks and it fosters an environment of security-aware and PII-oriented workers who aren’t going to fall for the classic “Click this link and win $100!”. And if you like games, you can even run simulated phishing tests during your trainings and see who’s best at spotting threats!
Training for a Better Tomorrow
A company is only as good as the people who work there. And a lot more is expected of today’s average employee. It’s not hyperbole to say that building awareness around PII handling and best data security practices could literally save your entire company someday.
And the greatest benefit of all: employee trainings that follow the guidelines mentioned here lead to something we all want: better protected PII. That’s good for you, good for the company, and good for all your data subjects. And that’s the kind of future we can all get behind!
Equip Your Employees with the Right Data Handling Tools and Try PII-Tools Data Discovery Software!
