It is that time again. One training year closes and another begins.  June 30 is the training deadline for this year’s courses. I am pleased to say that 74% of registrants have already completed the training. If those who are currently working on courses finish up, that will give us a record 79% completion rate.  Whooo hooo!!! I am confident that you won’t let me down and you will pop back in to complete those last few modules.

Unfortunately we have fewer people finishing the pretest. Only 70% have completed it. Luckily the majority of those who do, have not been assigned training. When training is assigned, typically only two modules must be completed.  That means the odds are, it will only take you 20 to 30 minutes to complete your annual training! Take aside a little time to finish this up and prove how effective the pretest program is. Keep in mind while the deadline was June 29, the Security Education Platform will allow you to access the pretest and assigned training until July 29, 2022.  So it isn’t too late to get it done!

In the beginning of July a new round of training will launch.  Watch for the email notifications to arrive in your inbox. Remember, current employees have a whole year to complete their training. Please don’t angry email me that you just finished your training and don’t know why you have to take more.  New hires aren’t so lucky. They have only 60 days to complete their training. It works best if you spread the training out instead of completing it all in one sitting.

This year registration for new hires into the Security Education Platform will be automatic as will enrollment in the new hire training.  This is wonderful news as neither you nor any of your new hires will have to fill out the registration form. The training notification will automatically arrive in their inbox. They can get started on their training right away without any help from you. Yaaayyy!! Unfortunately if they handle payment card data, they will still have to register for PCI training. Sorry, it can’t all be good news.

There will once again be a pretest for all current employees. This year, it will be a tad shorter, 22 instead of 33 questions.  Yaayyyy!! Some more good news.  Once again, there will be additional training for those of you considered to be high value targets. The training is very specific to your role and you will find it more helpful than annoying. At least that is the hope.

In addition to new training, we also have a new system in place to keep user profiles up to date. This should result in far fewer people getting training notifications after they have left MRU. As well supervisors should find that the training status reports for their teams will be more accurate. Another win!

Lastly, the Cyber Guys videos will take a short break over July and return again in August. They have been busy and we have a new whole crop of ridiculously funny reminders on how to stay cybersafe for the new year. Thank all of you for the positive feedback. I am delighted that you have found them as entertaining as I have.

A big thank you to everyone who has set aside precious time in their schedule to complete their training.  You have invested in the safety of your home, family and colleagues. While the training doesn’t always seem beneficial, sometime in the future you will be thankful that you took the time to learn how to identify and thwart a cyberattack.