Security Awareness
Also known as: Security Awareness Training · Security Awareness Program
Security awareness refers to training that helps employees recognize phishing and other manipulation attempts in day-to-day work.
Security awareness refers to training measures that equip employees to recognize phishing messages, pretext phone calls, and other attempts to get them to disclose information in the course of everyday work. The starting point is that many attacks don't target technical gaps at all – they target people.
In practice, security awareness consists of recurring, short training sessions and often simulated phishing tests, where employees unexpectedly receive a harmless test message to see how they react. This only becomes effective through repetition – a one-time training session rarely stays in anyone's memory for long.
An honest point here: technology alone doesn't solve phishing, because well-crafted attacks can slip past technical filters. Training alone doesn't solve it either, because even attentive employees will eventually miss a well-made message. The combination reduces the risk; neither one eliminates it completely on its own.
What it means in practice
For a business, missing security awareness usually only becomes visible after an incident, when it turns out that a fake invoice or a fake phone call didn't seem suspicious to anyone. Security awareness becomes effective when it happens regularly and is combined with technical measures like email filtering and multi-factor authentication. NDVDL offers security awareness training as a complement to technical safeguards.
Is this handled properly at your site?
We look at how it actually stands with you — and say honestly whether anything needs doing.
Related terms
All termsA term from your quote missing here?
Send us the passage you do not follow. We will explain it — with no obligation to order anything.