Best Cybersecurity Training & Courses for Employees 2022

What is Cyber Security Awareness?

Cybersecurity awareness goes beyond just having knowledge of cyber threats to also involve training, policies, actions, and habits that improve the security posture and culture in an organization. It involves being aware of cyber security best practices and proactive approaches to handle cyberattacks. Cybersecurity awareness also includes clearly understanding the impact of digital attacks on an individual, employees, an organization, and customers.

Why is Cybersecurity Training Important?

Plenty of cyberattacks have a social engineering phishing angle. Employees are often exposed to social engineering attacks such as phishing, and without the right cybersecurity awareness, they may be unaware of not only how to deal with them, but also unaware of the threat entirely.

As such, reducing such attacks ultimately by mitigating human error reduces the risk of being breached as data breaches are costly. Cybersecurity awareness training empowers staff throughout an organization to not only identify various threats but also handle them to add a layer of protection to the organization and improve their security hygiene and culture.

Also read: Cybersecurity Awareness for Employees: Best Practices

Best Cyber Security Training & Courses

ESET

ESET Cybersecurity Awareness Training adds a layer of security to your business by educating employees to steer clear of online scams, recognize phishing and apply internet best practices. It is a 90-minute course with interactive sessions and gamified quizzes to keep trainees engaged.

Key Differentiators

• 90-minute gamified course. ESET Cybersecurity Awareness Training provides a 90-minute gamified course that has trainees select their character and take upon the role of a virtual IT technician. The virtual technician assists team members to answer cybersecurity questions.
• Video-format learning. To ensure the training is not only engaging but also fun, ESET Cybersecurity Awareness Training presents learning content in video format. Additionally, mobile-friendly content enables employees to learn on the go.
• Easy-to-use phishing simulator. This security awareness training platform presents trainees with more than 150 phishing emails that are ready for use. The templates provide greater efficiency than designing phishing emails from scratch.
• Engaging minigames. The ESET Cybersecurity Awareness Training has trainees play captivating minigames as opposed to having users come up with answers to easy quizzes. Characters are accorded badges and reputation points, which may challenge employees to resit classes to attain better scores.

Pricing: Starts at $250 USD per 10 employees.

CybSafe

CybSafe Certified Skills Awareness Training is a brief and interactive course with threat-based modules and content specific to not only discipline but also role. The learning tracks go beyond company compliance requirements by providing modules that contribute to trainees’ professional development.

Key Differentiators

• Applied machine learning. CybSafe uses applied machine learning to understand the best approach to learning for trainees. IT helps understand how a trainee learns best. Applied machine learning also determines what keeps trainees engaged and at what times they are most engaged, to improve the value of the course.
• Tailored learning experience. CybSafe offers trainees the chance to fully explore their areas of strength through a tailored learning experience.
• Data-driven personalization. Going beyond a tailored learning experience, CybSafe leverages data to understand and adapt to a trainee’s learning needs to improve their security behaviors.

Pricing: Awareness training is part of all the CybSafe packages, with a free version available in the Starter package.

Living Security

Living Security is a comprehensive Human Risk Management solution that aims to turn human risk into proactive defense in a business. With Living Security, you can identify and quantify the highest risk in departments, regions, and people then use fun, engaging, and innovative up-to-date content to transform them into strengths.

Key Differentiators

• Microlearning modules. Living Security’s learning modules maintain engagement among trainees through brief learning modules. These modules are between 1 to 5 minutes long, with a to-the-point approach. Some of the topics covered include remote work, data classification, password hygiene, and phishing.
• Immersive training series. Living Security empowers you with game-based training experiences to engage and train teams across the enterprise. With an enterprise-wide leaderboard, you can list rewards and keep track of competitions and employee scores, regardless of where your teams are located.
• Enterprise Phishing Simulator. You can proactively and safely examine and quantify human vulnerability by sending harmless phishing attacks to your staff.

Pricing: A demo is available upon request but you shall have to contact Living Security for specific pricing information.

Cofense

Cofense offers an expansive online security awareness training for employees, for free, to empower staff to improve their security practices. This allows them to protect themselves, their devices, and their organizations from cyberthreats. The free training modules are available for download regardless of whether you are a Cofense user or not. Cofense also offers more targeted, premium training and tools to deal with threats like phishing.

Key Differentiators

• Cofense PhishMe. Cofense PhishMe teaches users about actual phishing threats facing their enterprises. It takes an experiential learning approach to instill more intelligent email behavior, transforming vulnerability into strength.
• Customizable phishing awareness training program. Users can configure a full-year training program with a handful of clicks through Cofense’s Smart Suggest capability. Smart Suggest uses advanced algorithms and best practices to suggest scenarios.
• Microlearning modules. CBFree Microlearning is characterized by short interactive modules with questions at the end.

Pricing: There is a complimentary plan using CBFree. Cofense Vision and PhishMe require you to message the vendor for a quote. However, PhishMe offers a demo.

KnowBe4

KnowBe4 offers an enterprise awareness training program with a diversified and modern approach that integrates gripping interactive web-based training, baseline testing with mock attacks as well as constant assessment through simulated phishing, smishing, and vishing attacks.

Key Differentiators

• Integrated platform. An easy-to-use graphical user interface displays all of KnowBe4’s integrated functions to allow you to carry out simulated attacks and kickstart training campaigns in minutes. It also has completely customizable templates, simulated attachments, and landing pages.
• Random attack delivery. KnowBe4 allows you to choose from more than 10,000 believable phishing spread over a typical workday. Each employee gets a different phishing email at a different time. The “Current Events” template ensures phishing messages are up to date.
• Advanced enterprise reporting. KnowBe4’s reporting capabilities offer visibility into the whole enterprise’s security awareness performance. The enterprise-level reporting provides insights into training and phishing simulation data spanning over a specified duration.
• Risk scoring. The Virtual Risk Officer feature helps users identify risk at various levels and implement their security awareness plan using data-driven decisions.

Pricing: For a quote, contact KnowBe4.

NINJIO

NINJIO uses engaging, less than five-minute Hollywood-style micro-learning videos in their cybersecurity awareness training solution to enable organizations, staff, families, and individuals to fight back against cyber threats. NINJIO teaches people how to prevent and avoid being hacked thus strengthening the first line of defense against cybercrime.

Key Differentiators

• Animated episodes. NINJIO releases short microlearning episodes every month to keep users at par with the cybersecurity landscape. These episodes educate users on the newest threats, breaches, and incidents.
• Hollywood writing. NINJIO’s episodes are kept engaging by a writer who belongs to the Writers Guild of America and has experience producing and writing tens of episodes for popular TV content.
• Gamified content. NINJIO introduces an aspect of competition to improve user engagement. A leaderboard encourages employees to quickly complete episodes and pass quizzes with minimal retries as they aim to earn more points and secure top spot.
• Friends and family use rights. A NINJIO subscription allows you to add seven friends and family members as recipients of NINJIO episodes at no extra cost.

Pricing: For pricing information, contact NINJIO.

Proofpoint

Proofpoint provides a distinctive people-centric approach to security awareness training to greatly reduce malware infections and phishing attacks. It turns users into a robust line of defense against various cyberattacks. Proofpoint uses targeted education to ensure users know how to react in the face of real threats.

Key Differentiators

• Targeted education driven by threat intelligence. Proofpoint offers fully customizable content that uses Learning Science Principles to keep learners engaged and influence their behavior. The content includes video, interactive, and game-based training modules.
• Phishing simulations. Using a people-centric approach, Proofpoint provides insights to understand who is susceptible to phishing attacks as well as who is vulnerable in other crucial security awareness domains. Through Very Attacked People (VAP) reports in addition to simulated attacks, the effectiveness of the awareness program is improved.
• PhishAlarm. Empower staff to flag suspicious email content with Proofpoint’s PhishAlarm Email Add-In. Proofpoint threat intelligence analyzes messages as attachments and URLs are sandboxed. Admins have the option to automatically remediate the messages and provide customized feedback to the user who identified the email.

Pricing: Proofpoint has a demo and a free trial. Further pricing information is only available through contacting Proofpoint.

Hook Security

Hook Security allows users to carry out a fully automated security awareness training program that entertains staff, mitigates risk, and improves security hygiene throughout the company. Users can run automated phishing tests and receive actionable reports to better the security awareness of a company.

Key Differentiators

• Automated phishing testing. With Hook Security, you can deploy a phishing test campaign in minutes. Monthly automated phishing simulations provide valuable education and training to vulnerable staff.
• Instant Training Moments. Instant Training Moments help employees immediately learn from the phishing tests they fell victim to.
• Real-time reporting and insights. Hook Security’s security awareness training allows users to monitor their progress in real-time through real-time reporting. They automatically receive monthly reports, enjoy real-time reporting dashboards, and can track their course completions.
• Easy to launch and automate. You can set up security awareness programs in minutes and extend extra training to employees who require it the most. Hook Security offers automated course enrollments, course reminders, and reports.

Pricing: Hook Security offers both a free trial and a demo. For organizations that need phishing simulations only, Hook Security charges $1.10 USD per user per month. The Standard package costs $1.60 USD per user per month for organizations seeking an introduction to security awareness training. Hook + charges $2 USD per user per month for organizations seeking to establish an exhaustive security-aware culture.

How Cybersecurity Awareness Training Solutions Compare

Training	Gamification	Phishing Security	Risk Scoring	Interactive training
ESET	✔	✔	⨯	✔
CybSafe	⨯	✔	✔	✔
Living Security	✔	✔	✔	✔
Cofense	⨯	✔	✔	✔
KnowBe4	⨯	✔	✔	✔
NINJIO	✔	✔	⨯	⨯
Proofpoint	✔	✔	✔	✔
Hook Security	⨯	✔	✔	✔

The Right Training for You

To choose the training solution that is right for your team, you should evaluate your cybersecurity awareness needs. It is also crucial to consider the ability levels of your team to avoid struggling to get everyone up to speed as a result of implementing the wrong training solution. The ideal solution should steer clear of jargon and focus on key training areas. Finally, you should also consider prioritizing usable and enjoyable training for your users to better the effectiveness of training.

Read next: Cybersecurity Awareness for Employees: Best Practices