4 tips for communicating cyber security with staff

You’re only as strong as your weakest link, and unfortunately, with cyber security, it only takes one weak link to bring down an entire infrastructure. 

But communicating cyber security is a challenge many IT managers face. Not only do non-tech-savvy people find cyber security boring, but they also don’t realize the massive threat weak security poses.

You need an easy way to educate your staff en masse and share cyber security tips; a way that grabs your staff’s attention and helps them retain what you teach them.

With videos, you can feel confident that people are actually listening to—and retaining—your cyber security tips. As a bonus, videos are easier to put together than training manuals (and more enjoyable to consume)!

When it comes to communicating cyber security tips with staff, you need a way to train your team and teach them the importance of staying safe online. 

If you rely on text-heavy materials—like training manuals—to deliver crucial information, you risk your audience ignoring the information you’re sending them. After all, how many people do you know who wake up in the morning hoping to pour over a thick cyber security training manual?

Chances are, most people aren’t as enthusiastic about cyber security as you are.

So what’s the solution? Since over training manuals, videos are the ideal medium to communicate cyber security tips. We have two easy ideas for you:

1. Create long-form webinars that contain in-depth information. Host them several times throughout the year and encourage staff to watch.

2. Create a training series that you send out periodically (i.e., once a month) to educate staff on different ways they can protect themselves. Keep these videos short and digestible since you’ll be sending them out frequently.

While some cyber security best practices might seem intuitive to you, other people might not feel the same. For example, Twingate conducted a study and found reported discussing sensitive information on work video calls. Many people aren’t as “cyber-secure-literate” as they think they are.

As an IT manager, it’s your job to figure out your team’s level of cyber security literacy.

To get your team to listen to you (and to provide the most relevant tips), you first need to understand what they already know about cyber security and tailor your message accordingly. 

To find out, ask what activities they already do to practice cyber security. Alternatively, figure out what they aren’t doing and why. Take note of the language your staff use when they talk to you about IT-related activities. In your messaging, use the same language so they understand the message you’re relaying.

In most cases, you’ll be dealing with a beginner audience who doesn’t know very much (if anything) about cyber security, so aim to talk in layman’s terms. Otherwise, you risk losing their interest or causing frustration. In both cases, your staff will tune you out and continue to ignore your tips.

Pro tip: before passing a message along, get someone who doesn’t work in IT to review the messaging in your video to ensure it’s easy to understand. Your bias may prevent you from crafting something at the right level and having a second set of eyes can help. With Moovly’s collaboration feature, you can send videos to other team members where they can review and comment on specific areas, helping you pinpoint (and fix) places that might cause confusion.

feel they’re missing out on company news due to poor internal communications. But when you need to distribute time-sensitive critical information—like a security breach—you need a strong .

Work with your internal communications department to streamline internal communications and make sure each employee knows how to get in touch with the IT department the moment something seems amiss. Alternatively, make sure they know how you’ll be in touch with them if there’s a cyber attack.

Foster an open community and let employees know you’re happy to answer any cyber security questions they have. If possible, combine your internal communications with a Q&A feature. For example, create a dedicated chat channel strictly for IT Q&As. You can pop in weekly to answer questions and everyone in the channel can read your answers and learn something new.

As a bonus, you can use these questions to inspire your cyber security tip videos.

Whether you’re sending out webinars or short tidbits, the following videos will educate and keep your viewer interested from start to finish.

Send out tips to help your staff understand why cyber security prevention is crucial. Give everyone tasks they can perform daily, weekly, or monthly to defend themselves (and the company) against threats. To make sure staff actually put your tips into practice, make sure each tip you provide is actionable and memorable.

For example, tell staff to change their passwords every X amount of months, and show them the exact steps to take to change their password. Don’t skip out on the instructions and assume everyone knows how to complete basic tasks. People might be too embarrassed to admit they don’t know how to do it, and instead, forgo the entire activity altogether.

Real-life examples help learners form connections to solidify what they’re learning. Provide your staff with examples of actual cyber-security breaches. Go one step further and share what should have been done within each breach to minimize damage. 

With each example, your staff will get a stronger understanding of how important their actions are, and most importantly, what they can do to prevent attacks.

Just as important as it is to teach about prevention, your staff also need to know what to do if they’re under attack. Provide concrete steps for different situations so staff know how to recognize an attack and wJust as important as it is to teach about prevention, your staff also need to know what to do if they’re under attack. Provide concrete steps for different situations so staff know how to recognize an attack and what to do when one happens.hat to do when one happens.

Although video might seem like something reserved for big companies with a production studio budget, it’s not. 

Using Moovly, , you can create professional and compelling training—no video production experience required! 

See Moovly’s drag-and-drop video editor in action

Choose from different video styles, like cartoon, whiteboard, documentary-style, or a mix to keep staff entertained and engaged.

Because Moovly is a drag-and-drop video editor, you can create cyber security videos in a snap. To streamline your workflow even more, (or use our ) for your cyber security videos within Moovly. Then, each time you need to make a video, simply swap out the text and media with relevant content and you’ll have a new video with fresh cyber security tips.

On top of the ability to use or create templates, Moovly has other features to simplify your workflow:

• Our media library has millions of clips, sounds, photos, and videos available to use in your videos

• We can connect to your digital asset management system if you have your own media you’d like to use

• Collaborate with team members by adding them to your Moovly account so they can comment and review your videos
  

If you work for an international company, you’ll likely need a way to communicate cyber security tips with people who speak different languages. Rather than create a new video for each language (which would be time-consuming and laborious) use to translate your video’s subtitles into over 100 different languages automatically.

With Moovly’s export feature, export your videos straight into centralized folders for staff to watch and re-watch as needed.

And as your company expands, new hires will know exactly where to find previous videos to catch up on.

As companies start introducing more work-from-home policies, you need to stay on top of your cyber security communications. An active approach to cyber security keeps your entire organization safe, and the easiest way to remain active is to send out cyber security tip videos.

and improve the effectiveness of your IT communications today!

Dana is a freelance writer who works closely with B2B SaaS brands to create content people enjoy reading. When she’s not working, you’ll find her sipping on a warm cup of tea and reading a good book (the scarier, the better). See what she’s up at