Security Awareness Training

Benefits of security awareness training

Organizations face a sobering reality: technical security controls alone cannot prevent breaches. According to the FBI's 2024 Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) Report, Business Email Compromise schemes reached $2.77 billion in losses during 2024 alone, while total cybercrime losses exceeded $16.6 billion—a 33% increase from the previous year. With human-targeted attacks driving the majority of these incidents, the question isn't whether to invest in security awareness training—it's how to maximize its impact.

Security awareness training (SAT) addresses the specific behaviors attackers exploit in social engineering campaigns. When implemented effectively, SAT reduces click-through rates on phishing simulations, increases threat reporting, shortens incident response times, and strengthens overall security culture. Organizations with mature SAT programs demonstrate measurably lower breach rates and faster threat detection compared to those with minimal or compliance-only training.

This chapter explores seven key benefits of security awareness training and examines common implementation mistakes that undermine program effectiveness, helping you build a training program that delivers measurable risk reduction.

Summary of key benefits of performing security awareness training

The table below summarizes seven benefits of security awareness training (SAT) we will explore in this article.

Seven benefits of security awareness training

The sections below detail seven benefits of security awareness training that can help organizations reduce risk and empower employees to be proactive about cybersecurity.  

Prevent financial loss

While cyber attacks have different goals, such as espionage, stealing intellectual property, disrupting service, etc., financial gain remains the prominent goal for many attackers. One of the favorite initial attack vectors is most certainly exploiting human trust due to the relatively high success rate and the ease of setting up phishing infrastructure for attackers. 

Protect company reputation

Phishing-induced breaches can devastate an organization's reputation and financial standing. In 2024, Change Healthcare suffered one of the largest healthcare breaches in history, affecting over 100 million users after attackers gained access through compromised credentials harvested via phishing. The company paid a $22 million ransom and faced massive operational disruptions across the U.S. healthcare system.

The financial and reputational impact extends beyond immediate costs. T-Mobile settled with the FCC for $31.5 million in 2024 following a series of data breaches that exposed millions of customer records. According to IBM's 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report, the average data breach now costs $4.88 million, with phishing-related breaches averaging similar figures when factoring in forensic investigations, regulatory fines, legal settlements, and customer remediation efforts.

Organizations committed to strong security postures through comprehensive training programs demonstrate their dedication to protecting customer data. This commitment not only reduces breach risk but also protects organizational reputation, maintains customer trust, and makes attracting investors and partners easier.

Make employees an extension of the security team

Security Operations Center (SOC) teams face unprecedented pressure. According to multiple industry reports from 2024, 63-76% of SOC analysts report experiencing burnout due to mounting workloads, with 55% having considered leaving the profession entirely. Organizations face 97% year-over-year increases in security alert volumes, while 81% of security teams report their workload has increased over the past year.

The cybersecurity workforce gap compounds this challenge. ISC2 estimates 4.8 million unfilled cybersecurity positions globally in 2024—a 19% increase from 2023. This skills shortage makes every security team member invaluable, yet alert fatigue and repetitive manual triage drive many toward burnout and turnover.

Well-trained employees become force multipliers for overwhelmed security teams. When staff can confidently identify and report suspicious emails before clicking, they act as human sensors that extend security team reach. Employees who report undetected phishing campaigns enable security teams to respond quickly, eliminate threats across the organization, and prevent attacks from escalating to breaches—all without adding to SOC analyst workload.

Personal protection

Although the company's goal is to ensure that its employees are security-aware and harder to be deceived by phishing emails, this also benefits employees outside the workspace. Phishing is often opportunistic and (aside from spear phishing) does not distinguish between work or private email addresses. 

Any email address holder can be a potential victim of the “spray and pray” tactic, which aims to reach as many victims as possible and hope one falls victim. This also includes email addresses of family members, teenagers, and elders, who are often not security-aware. By mastering SAT, employees can also assist their families in identifying phishing emails or educating them on common indicators of a phishing email, thus contributing to a safer community.  

Continuous improvement

The phishing problem is not new. Phishing threats have plagued businesses for years and will continue for the foreseeable future. Although its cause, goal, and common strategies are known, completely preventing phishing is still hard. This is because while security tools and our knowledge of phishing improve, attackers also improve. They use newer tools, exploit weaknesses during stressful periods like COVID19 pandemic, and try to build trust by sending emails from a compromised account of someone the victim knows, to name a few. In this cat-and-a-mouse never-ending game, the need to remain up-to-date with the latest phishing trends is crucial for the success of phishing protection.

Promote a security culture

By training employees with security concepts and making them feel involved in protecting their company, employees are more likely to cooperate and contribute to the general goal of keeping the company secure. By emphasizing their role and importance for the success of the company, they are encouraged to incorporate security practices into their daily operations, thus creating and contributing to a healthy security culture.

Satisfy compliance and regulatory requirements

Aside from saving costs and protecting its reputation, a company has to satisfy different compliance and regulations requirements, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Consumer Privacy Laws, Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), etc. Failure to do so can result in huge fines or severe punishment from the government, which might go as far as to revoke the company’s licenses or right to operate. By making SAT part of the organization processes, a company can prove that it takes security measures seriously and aims for a secure working environment.

Common security awareness training mistakes 

Effective security awareness training comes with many benefits. However, there are some common mistakes that can reduce SAT’s effectiveness. Here are four common security awareness training mistakes to avoid:

• Making the training optional. People are often busy and will only pay attention to something they are obligated to do. This is often the case for the C-level managers that are hard to reach or persuade. To avoid this, SATs should be made mandatory for everyone since everyone can be the victim or target of a phishing email, especially C-level managers who are hard to reach.
  
•  Not holding training frequently. People tend to forget, especially if it is something that they only practice once a year. Therefore, training sessions should be planned and performed regularly.
  
• No tests. Employees who are required to perform a training session might scroll down or click through the text without reading its content. Conducting tests at the end of the session will encourage employees to be attentive during the training session since their knowledge will be tested at the end of the session.
  
• Outdated content. Phishing trends change all the time, and training content should, too. Failing to update the content will make employees more likely to fall victim to newer phishing schemes. The company should always consider the threat landscape and the latest phishing trends and reflect that in its training content.

However, it is challenging for many small-to-medium organizations to create frequent training sessions, keep up-to-date phishing content, create tests, etc. That is why your company should consider outsourcing such activity to companies specializing in phishing and security training and tracking progress and results.

Summary

Security awareness training is an essential component of an anti-phishing strategy. These trainings can lead to several benefits such as maintaining reputation, avoiding financial loss, and promoting a security culture. However, it is important to avoid the common SAT pitfalls that reduce the effectiveness of security training.  And there is a considerable upside for organizations that get security awareness training right. While SAT is not a cure-all for phishing, it can reduce risk and make it harder for an attacker to use this popular attack vector against you.