3 Hidden Threats to Corporate Training Programs

Let me ask you a question. Are you conducting your corporate training through an e-learning channel, like Blackboard or Moodle? It’s funny. Companies know they need to train their employees on security protocol, but often they communicate that protocol in some rather un-secure ways.

According to a recent survey from Trustwave, a majority of companies have either no system in place or a partial system in place for monitoring and tracking their sensitive data.

Moreover, what we have found at eServe is that many companies are unaware of what kind of data they even need to protect! Is that you?

Think about it. Any training session you conduct for a new hire or seasoned employee would (and should) include data about your company’s processes, products, customers, strategies, goals and more. They are not just casual blogs or press releases – training materials contain proprietary data. That is data your competitors would love to have and that you should do everything in your power to keep from getting out!

You don’t have to be in a government agency or big tech firm to worry about this either. Whether your data is intentionally hacked or just mishandled, you would be surprised at who might be interested in using it to their advantage – or where it might end up. Corporate training leaders in every field – from medicine to the culinary arts- has company secrets to protect.

And it is often only after those secrets have become vulnerable that they realize what that information means in the wrong hands.

Here are 5 hidden threats to putting your training information online.

1. The Threat of Hacking to Corporate Training

Remember Julian Assange of Wikileaks? His goal was simple – expose the hypocrisy of the U.S. and other governments. As an expert computer programmer, he was able to achieve this goal. But you don’t have to be a political organization or nation to be threatened by a motivated hacker. You just need one company wanting to mirror your company and with the know-how to go after your information. Don’t let sticky fingers threaten your bottom line.

2. The Threat of Careless Employees to Corporate Training

I bet if you were to survey your staff members you would find that at least 50% (if not more) write their password down on a sticky note and attach it to their monitor. Or, maybe they forget it altogether and use the password of their cubicle mate or neighbor. But who’s to say their neighbor is privy to the same information they are?

Also, who’s to say that sticky note doesn’t end up in the wrong hands? Or, what if the slides you presented during a WebEx conference aren’t saved on a staff member’s laptop that was accidentally lost or left behind?
An employee does not have to be disgruntled to leave your proprietary information in the wrong hands.

They just have to be human. If you’re sharing any secure information with your staff, always keep that in mind.

3. The Threat of Upheaval to Corporate Training

Another e-learning threat has nothing to do with the exposure of data – in fact it is quite the opposite. For some industries, such as medicine or finance, the rapid dissemination of information is crucial to the success of their operations. Many times, it can literally mean life or death.

Think about it like this. What if a medical organization in Florida scheduled a seminar titled “Zika Virus: Our response to the Threat & Treating Pregnant Women.” In 2016, the Zika crisis was a real and urgent threat for South Florida families. Getting the right information in the hands of professionals who needed it most was an urgent concern. Similar situations would be training for security institutions that contract out to the TSA or other government bodies.

Updates and training sessions are often ad hoc and almost always must go on without a hitch. Any threat to the system these sessions are conducted on could mean putting people and possibly whole areas at risk.

No matter where you fall on this spectrum or which threat concerns you the most, there is a solutions! Always secure your training sessions. Avoid putting your valuable knowledge in the wrong hands by setting up the right security infrastructure and protocol from the get-go:

• Only allow registered invitees to join meetings
• Create specific passwords for each meeting rather than the same password for all your meetings
• Coach your trainers to choose wisely who they let in the training rooms
• Create rank-based permission levels (i.e., Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 access levels)
• Track and analyze who accesses your data (when, where and how long)

Want to gain greater peace of mind with your corporate training content? eServe is a content delivery platform that helps you empower your staff with the freedom to train and learn on their schedule, while also providing you with the power to protect that information.

In the digital age, both security and flexibility are key to mastering corporate e-learning and digital document management.