Best Security Awareness Training for Small Business

The best security awareness training for a small business is the one your people will finish, understand and use on a normal Tuesday. A long list of features does not matter if nobody has time to run it. This page explains what small teams actually need, describes the main kinds of product, and gives a checklist you can use with any vendor.

What small teams actually need

A company of five to fifty people is different from a large one. There is usually no security department. The person who buys the training may also be the owner, the office manager and the one who resets the Wi-Fi. So small teams need training that:

• Starts fast. If setup takes a week, it will not happen.
• Fits a short break. Five minutes is realistic. Sixty is not.
• Works on a phone. Many staff do not sit at a desk.
• Uses plain words. People learn little from jargon, and some of your team may have English as a second language.
• Covers the real risks. For most small businesses, that means stolen passwords, scam messages, fake invoices and changed bank details, lost phones, and what to do after a mistake.
• Makes it safe to report. The first hour after a mistake matters most. People report when they are not afraid.

Say you run a six-person bakery with a small delivery service. Your risks are not exotic. A supplier email asks you to update bank details. A fake delivery text arrives on the van driver's phone. The shop tablet shares a password with the owner's email. Good training covers exactly these cases.

Platforms built for admins

Many well-known products are platforms. They are designed for a person in IT, security or human resources who assigns courses, sends test phishing emails, tracks completion and produces reports.

Strengths: central control, evidence for insurers or customers, automatic reminders, and test messages that show where people click.

Watch for: a setup effort that suits a large company, a cost model to check as your team grows, and a need for someone to read the reports each month. If that person is you, ask honestly whether you will do it. Some of these vendors also offer a managed version, where their staff run the programme for you, which removes the workload but not the cost.

Read our comparisons of NINJIO, Wizer and Huntress for fair summaries of how three of them work.

Video libraries

Some products are mainly libraries of short videos, often stories or animations about real incidents. They are easy to start.

Strengths: low effort and good for raising attention.

Watch for: watching is not doing. A video tells people that a fake invoice exists. It does not always make them practise what to do about it. Ask whether there are questions, and whether the content covers your own situations, not only a general threat.

Lesson apps on the phone

A third kind of product is a lesson app. The learner opens it, completes a short lesson with questions, and moves along a path. DefSafe is built this way: lessons of about five minutes, on a phone or in a browser, with slides, a presenter and questions that ask you to decide.

Strengths: each person practises, it fits a coffee break, it needs no administrator, and it also covers personal and family safety, which makes the habits stick.

Watch for: it is built for the learner, so it does not give a company-wide control panel or send test phishing emails. If you must show a signed record for every employee, you may need something else beside it.

The three kinds side by side

	Admin platform	Video library	Lesson app
Built for	An administrator	A whole team	The individual learner
Setup effort	Highest	Low	Lowest
Practice	Test phishing emails, courses	Mostly watching	Questions in each lesson
Reports for the company	Yes	Often basic	Not the focus
Best when	You need evidence and control	You need a quick start	You want habits and have no administrator

A checklist for choosing

Use this list with any vendor, including us.

1. Name the problem. Is it evidence for an insurer, a customer or a rule? Or is it fewer mistakes? You may need different things.
2. Count the people and the time. How many staff, how many minutes can each give each week, and who will run it?
3. Try it yourself. Do a lesson or a video on your own phone. If you get bored, so will your team.
4. Test the language. Give a sample to the person who reads English least easily.
5. Check practice. Does the learner answer questions or make decisions, or only watch?
6. Check relevance. Does it cover payment fraud, account takeover, scam messages and reporting, in a way that fits your work?
7. Look at the leaders' part. Owners and managers are the main targets of payment fraud. Ask whether there is content for them.
8. Ask about price in plain words. Per user, per month, per year? What happens when you add the tenth person?
9. Ask what you must do each month. If the answer is "read reports", decide who will.
10. Plan the human part. No product replaces a manager saying "report problems early, and nobody will be blamed".

Make it work whichever you pick

Training works best with three simple habits from the owner or manager.

• Say why. Tell the team about a real kind of scam that affects businesses like yours, without scaring anyone.
• Write one clear rule. For example: "Any change of bank details is checked by phone, on a number we already have." Short rules are followed. Long policies are not.
• Thank people who report. If someone clicks a bad link and tells you in ten minutes, that is a success.

Our guide to how to protect your online accounts is a good first read for the whole team, and security responsibilities by job role helps you decide who needs to know what.

Questions people ask

How much training does a small team need?

Little and often beats long and rare. A few minutes each week keeps habits fresh. A single long session is forgotten quickly.

Do we need test phishing emails?

They are useful for some teams, but not required to start. If you use them, treat the results as a way to learn, and never as a way to blame a person.

Is free training good enough?

Free material can be a fine start, and public bodies in many countries publish guidance for small business. Check that it is clear, practical and kept up to date, and that people will really use it.

Who should do the training first?

Start with whoever handles money, customer data and the company's main accounts, and with the owner. Then bring in everyone else.

Learn this in five minutes

The track "Managers and Executives" has short lessons for the person who buys and leads training: make cyber safety part of daily work, set clear security rules and policies people can follow, make it safe to report mistakes, identify the systems and information that matter most, and prepare executives for targeted attacks and incidents. It is a good place to start before you choose a product for your team.