Most businesses store critical assets like customer data and financial records digitally. Protect your systems with a robust digital defense so these resources stay out of the hands of cyber threats. Check out this list of 10 free cybersecurity training courses to help you do just that.
Leading our list is an SC Training course that offers a comprehensive overview of the basics of cyber security. It’s created for both new and seasoned employees to teach them the importance of taking measures to protect themselves and the company from cyber attacks.
This free cybersecurity training covers crucial topics including injection attacks, cross-site scripting, broken access control, and sensitive data exposure. It’ll also give your teams a refresher on the three most common attacks, namely malware, denial-of-service attacks, and phishing.
It’ll also deliver practical tips and strategies on safely using emails and maximizing the use of password safety and password managers. Plus, its lesson on safe internet use is one that’s guaranteed to be useful for your employees, whether in or out of work.
This cybersecurity course is packed with vital information on various threats and protection strategies. SC Training uses microlearning to deliver targeted lessons, helping teams quickly grasp key concepts and overcome short attention spans.
Created by: SC Training
Length: 5-10 minutes per lesson (self-paced)
Certificate: Available
Cost: Free (up to 10 users)
When training employees on cyber security, it’s important to inform them that threats can also come from within your organization. This SC Training course gives a basic rundown of the different types of insider threats. It’ll also delve into teaching the suspicious activities one should look out for to easily spot them.
The final lesson in this three-part course addresses a crucial question: How can we protect company data? After their cyber security staff training, your teams can talk more about their thoughts on this question and other matters about the course with SC Training’s Discussions feature.
Discussions is an effective way to share questions, ideas, and best practices through a forum-style feature. Plus, it helps you facilitate an open discussion and collect real-time insights so you can check how well they understood the course.
Created by: SC Training
Length: 5-10 minutes per lesson (self-paced)
Certificate: Available
Cost: Free (up to 10 users)
Small businesses are also at risk of hacking. This EC-Council course is particularly aimed to help small business owners understand cyber risk and reduce its possible impacts. It’ll also go over the primary concepts connected to cyber insurance and the advantages and disadvantages of having a policy.
This course is delivered through 12 video lessons. There are three assessments given throughout the training and you will get a certificate of completion upon accomplishing all the requirements.
Up next is another introductory course to the key concepts of cyber security. It’ll delve into the motivation as to why your organization should implement cybersecurity strategies and what leads a hacker to break into the system.
Your teams will also understand why cloud storage is becoming the popular choice today. Plus, it’ll orient them on ransomware, botnet attacks, phishing attacks, cryptocurrency hijacking, and more.
This Simplilearn course highlights the different types of cyberattacks that are commonly faced by businesses at present. It targets executives, managers, security consultants, and other cybersecurity professionals to give them an overview of how these threats impact businesses and individuals.
It covers specific forms of attacks including SQL injection, denial-of-service, and brute force attacks. It’ll also train them on the different practical strategies they can use to mitigate these threats and enhance your organization’s defenses.
This next course covers a specific aspect of cybersecurity called digital forensics. It differs from the other courses on this list as it goes over the legal side of computer-related crimes and how to obtain evidence for it.
This course is created by the Rochester Institute of Technology and is hosted on edX. It’ll talk about court admissibility, appropriate forensic tools, and the forensics report. This is an advanced course so you do need to take a prerequisite training before jumping on this one.
Created by: Rochester Institute of Technology and edX
Length: 10-12 hours per week (for 8 months)
Certificate: Available
Cost: Free; paid upgrades at 399 USD
This IBM course is created with cybersecurity professionals in mind. It’s a good beginner course to jumpstart your or your team’s careers as it goes over key concepts, tools, and practices to protect both digital and physical assets.
This course will also dive into various security threats, common best practices, and concepts related to authentication and identity management. This course is self-paced, but it can be taken for a limited time only.
Created by: IBM and edX
Length: 3-5 hours per week (for 9 months)
Certificate: Available
Cost: Free; paid upgrades at 149 USD
This course comes straight from one of the top member associations for cybersecurity professionals, ISC2. They offer online self-paced training that’s free of charge after registering for an account and filling out your ISC2 candidate application form.
If you’re looking for free online cyber security courses with certificates, you can register for their free certification exam after getting access to training. The only downside is that there is a 50 USD annual fee to become a certified member of ISC2 after passing the test.
Next, we have Cisco’s introductory course. It’s designed for everyone from those who want to protect their personal digital assets to people who want to start their cybersecurity career. It covers topics such as attacks, data and privacy protection, ethical issues, and more.
Each module ends with a quiz to refresh your team’s knowledge and a final exam is given at the end after completing training. This course also comes in multiple languages, making it more accessible to wider audiences.
Last but not least, this SC Training course talks about cyber and non-cyber scams and how we become vulnerable to them. This training can equip your teams with the ability to detect scams and mitigate them in the workplace.
It’ll also train them on the most common retail scams and the credit card scanner scam, on top of the other tips it’ll give to stop scams. This makes it the perfect cybersecurity course for teams in grocery shops, convenience stores, and other retail businesses.
Created by: SC Training
Length: 5-10 minutes -per lesson (self-paced)
Certificate: Available
Cost: Free (up to 10 users)
In 2023, there were 343,338,964 victims of cyberattacks, according to data from the Identity Theft Resource Center. Lack of cybersecurity training has led to increased risks of vulnerability to attacks and security breaches. In return, this has compromised the sensitive information of many individuals and businesses.
The good news is that these cyberattacks are completely avoidable. One way to guarantee this is for businesses to prioritize awareness among teams while implementing strong security measures.
Cybersecurity refers to practices that protect computers, mobile devices, and other internet-connected systems from unauthorized access, malicious attacks, and other potential damage. Some of the most common and effective practices include firewalls, encryption, access control, software updates, and of course, awareness training.
For businesses, cybersecurity is an important tool in preventing the potential damage of having critical information fall into the wrong hands. It safeguards your customers’ trust and protects your organization from downtime, financial loss, compliance issues, and legal damage.
Learning how to protect the valuable assets you store digitally shouldn’t have to be expensive. Luckily, there are ways to get started on cybersecurity training without having to break the bank. For example, your teams can take online courses delivered by some of the best online course platforms like SC Training.
Other ways to give free cyber security training for employees include:
There’s no better time than now to kickstart securing your data and systems against the looming threat of cyber attacks. With the right strategies, you can stay one step ahead of negligence and cyber criminals.
Protect your customers, your teams, and your business with free cybersecurity training. Maximize the use of effective online courses to deliver key information to employees whenever and wherever. Set up automated annual refresher courses with push notifications to minimize risks and guarantee continuous compliance.
Stay ahead of threats with SC Training’s cybersecurity courses. Sign up today!