Telkom invests in cybersecurity training | Trendsmedia.

Telkom announced earlier this week that it has invested in ongoing employee training and development to ensure cybersecurity awareness and compliance. The network provider believes that the current cybersecurity landscape places employees at risk of fraud, theft and infiltration.

“We identified a gap in terms of employee training and awareness around IT and cybersecurity,” says Eseu Choma, Senior Manager of Information Security Assurance at Telkom SA.

“We protect our entire network, invest in intelligent systems and solutions, but our employees are always vulnerable targets to cybercriminals. If not trained, they are most likely to live careless lives online,” continues Choma. “We wanted to change our approach from one that just sets goals and box-ticking exercises to one that changed the culture and engaged with people on what they should do for both the company and themselves. We wanted people to change their internal culture as well, so they always led the most secure cyber life.”

There are three key elements comprised the cybersecurity training process: the learning platform, the efficiency assessment (phishing simulator), and the Phish Alert button. The learning content was developed for the South African audience and included focused and relevant information that didn’t bombard the users. The training had to be short, smart and targeted so that employees could undertake the training sessions in under 10 minutes.

“I believe it’s critical that training is short in order to be effective and ensure company-wide uptake.”

This is a step in a positive direction for Telkom – considering the company recently announced that it plans to cut up to 3,000 jobs – nearly 20% of its total workforce – due to gloomy share-price performance on top of dwindling earnings recording in 2019.

Edited by Jenna Delport

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