Report: Only 31% of employees are trained against ransomware attacks

According to a new survey by Entrust, only 31% of employees at enterprise companies report having received training on ransomware attacks.

The survey found that the COVID-19 pandemic drove significant data security training efforts at hybrid workplaces around the world. The vast majority of enterprise business leaders who responded (81%) said their company had offered employees training on hybrid work data security, with 94% of those respondents reporting that training had a positive impact on data security.

However, the survey also revealed that such training focused more on general security practices and were not designed with specific, immediate threats in mind, like ransomware and phishing attacks. Seventy-four percent of leaders and employees said the training they received provided personal best practices for security of company information, while only 52% said they’d received training on how to resist phishing attacks, for example.

With both phishing and ransomware attacks on the rise, Entrust’s report, titled “Securing the New Hybrid Workplace,” recommends that enterprise companies consider how they can make their security training better tailored to the specific types of attacks happening today.

The report, published on November 1, surveyed 1,500 leaders and 1,500 employees from large companies (those with 1,000 to 50,000+ employees) in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Japan, and Singapore. All the respondents to the survey are employed by organizations that currently use a hybrid work model, formerly used a hybrid work model, or are fully remote but considering a hybrid work model.

Read the full report by Entrust.