[Webinar Recap] The Great Debate: Security Awareness Training

Recently, Axonius hosted the latest episode of The Great Debate, a 10-part webinar series where two speakers go up against one other to debate the merits and pitfalls of the top cybersecurity trends.

Every episode focuses on a specific topic, with one speaker taking the “in favor” stance and the other taking “in opposition”. At the end, the audience chooses whose case is most compelling and each debater walks away with $500 to the charity of their choice.

This latest round of The Great Debate spotlighted security awareness training.

Karen Walsh, Owner of Allegro Solutions, and Kathryn Goldman, CEO and Founder of Cybermaniacs, went toe-to-toe on whether or not security awareness training ought to be the No. 1 cybersecurity priority right now.

Walsh believes security awareness efforts need to go beyond basic employee training.

"Statistics prove that the [security awareness training] investments currently are not paying off,” Walsh said.

“It’s that human element. You can’t stop people from having emotions — or responding based on a fight or flight response — because that is just what we’re born with.. and that’s what phishing preys upon,” she reasoned.

Goldman, however, was in favor of security awareness training, suggesting the future of work will rely on it.

“What humans are going to be doing in the future… is complex tasks, rapid decision making, innovation, creativity, smashing all this stuff together in all sorts of new fields,” she explained.

"We have to have a workforce that’s ready for that,” Goldman added.

You can check out the full debate between Karen Walsh and Kathryn Goldman by watching the on-demand webinar replay.

Want to catch the next episode of The Great Debate? Join us for a special edition during Predictability 2021, a free, half-day conference for cybersecurity professionals. Speakers Allan Alford, Delivery CISO, NTT DATA Services, and Taylor Lehmann, Partner, SideChannel Security will argue what the No. 1 cybersecurity priority should be in 2021.

Register for Predictability 2021 now.