Virtual training

The 4 Main Cybersecurity Training Benefits of Hands-on Environments

liran

Mar 01, 2021 - 3 min read
Cybersecurity Training Benefits of Hands-on Environments

Let’s face it. To understand what your software’s all about, your customers need to try it for themselves.

A theoretical learning environment relies on users to make the leap from a practical understanding of the information to applying it in their own setting. In some areas, this kind of trial and error is part and parcel of the process, such as creating a line of code and seeing if it works in the wild. However, when it comes to security, you can’t leave anything to chance.

Hands-on experiences can eliminate this cognitive leap, and get your customers and employees engaging with your software from the very earliest stages.

Main Cybersecurity Training Benefits of Hands-on Environments

#1: Virtual cybersecurity training changes a weak learning environment to a generous learning environment

A poor security posture doesn’t offer feedback. Here’s what we mean by that; If an employee opens a phishing email by mistake – nothing happens. No alarms go off, no pop-ups appear on-screen, and their day continues as usual. The same is usually true when your employees accidentally connect a compromised USB drive, create an over-permissive policy, leave a cloud file unsecured, or enter their credentials on a fake website. This is known as a weak learning environment, because it doesn’t give the employee a chance to learn from their actions.

Cloud cybersecurity training for employees can change all that. By giving your users simulations where they can test and play, risk-free, you can set up a situation where staff can make mistakes and immediately learn from their actions. This kind of generous learning environment adds visibility to how they interact inside the network, and actually promotes behavioral change.

51 Best Practices to Boost Customer Software Training

CS_Ebook_51 best practices of performance_LP_944x695_B

#2: Extend security awareness outside of the security department

Theoretical learning works best when you’re speaking to people who work in that specific area of study. A mechanic will be able to look at a labeled drawing of a car engine, and then implement what they have learned the next time they reach under the hood. For security teams who work in security every day, explaining how security products work, in theory, could well be enough. But it’s not just security professionals that need to be on top of risk management in an organization:

By offering a cybersecurity lab to try out security tools in practice, organizations can offer customer training that meets the entire company’s requirements, including newcomers to the technical or digital world. Don’t forget to make sure that your environments can handle a multi-cloud and hybrid reality, so that you’re ready for any customer request.

#3: Hands-on cyber resilience training is perfect for lean security teams

Lean security is an important trend to watch, borrowing from agile methodology to do more with less, and add automation and simplicity to security programs. Think about traditional security awareness or training programs, where resources were required to get everyone physically in the same place at the same time, and time was spent setting up multiple individual machines and infrastructures, customized manually for each customer need. This would be impossible for a lean security team to provide.

Instead, as hands-on training environments can scale to as large a group as necessary, and offer automated, identical labs to practice and learn within, they work exceptionally well for lean security teams. Security training can be automated and run instantly from your software environment’s blueprints, adding simplicity, agility, and speed.

#4: Improve your product with a built-in feedback cycle

How much do you know about your customers, and why they love (or hate) your product? Chances are, it’s not enough. Hands-on environments give you added visibility into how your actual users interact with your software, including where they make mistakes and open the environment up to risk, where they skip steps or ignore alerts, and where the software works like a charm.

Think of a hands-on environment like a real-time feedback loop. You can use this data to improve your cybersecurity software, add tutorials or create new features, or simply reach out to support a prospect when they’re involved in a demo or POC. For instructors who are training a team on a new security software piece, hands-on environments give an equal view of all student screens, which is impossible face to face.

Zoom in, share, or broadcast as necessary to provide the feedback your users need to shore up their security defenses with new software from day one.

Of course, this is all just theory. Why don’t you try it for yourself, hands-on? Schedule a demo