Cybersecurity Awareness Training Calgary

Cybersecurity awareness training is structured education that teaches employees how to recognize and respond to cyber threats — phishing emails, social engineering calls, password attacks, and unsafe device behaviour. Its purpose is to reduce the human error that accounts for the majority of successful cyberattacks. For Calgary and Alberta businesses, an effective program includes live training sessions, phishing simulation campaigns, new hire onboarding training, and ongoing refresher content tied to current threat activity. The goal is sustained behaviour change — not a one-time checkbox.

A phishing simulation is a controlled, safe test of your employees' ability to identify and report a phishing email. AltaCom sends realistic phishing emails — designed to look like the social engineering attempts currently targeting Calgary businesses — and measures who clicks, who enters credentials, and who correctly reports the email. The results give you a precise baseline of your human risk by department and role. Those findings directly shape subsequent training sessions: we train to the specific vulnerabilities your simulation revealed, not generic scenarios. Repeat simulations over time produce measurable click-rate reduction — data that satisfies cyber insurance underwriters.

Most cybersecurity professionals recommend security awareness training at a minimum quarterly, with monthly phishing simulations and immediate new hire training on day one of employment. Annual training alone is not sufficient — threat techniques evolve continuously and employees forget what they learned within weeks without reinforcement. AltaCom's CyberAware program structures training as an ongoing program: monthly Click2Learn webinars, quarterly Lunch & Learn sessions, and continuous phishing simulations that keep your team sharp and provide insurers with evidence of a consistent program.

Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) requires organizations to protect personal information in their custody through reasonable safeguards — both technical and organizational. Employee security awareness training is one of the most defensible organizational safeguards a business can demonstrate. While PIPA does not mandate a specific training frequency or format, documented training is considered a reasonable measure, and its absence has been cited negatively in breach investigations. AltaCom provides training completion records, session logs, and phishing simulation results that support your PIPA documentation obligations.

Because videos don't answer questions. A pre-recorded module can't respond when an employee says 'but what about the email we got last week that looked exactly like this?' Real trainers can. AltaCom's security professionals deliver every session live — adjusting in real time to your team's questions, your specific tools, and the threats that are actually targeting your industry right now. The result is training that sticks rather than training that gets clicked through.

The moment a new employee joins your business, they are a security gap. They don't know what a legitimate internal request looks like. They don't know which systems hold sensitive data. They haven't learned to recognize a social engineering attempt dressed up as an IT support call. Most businesses wait weeks or months before providing any security training — if they provide it at all. AltaCom trains new hires on day one, before they have access to your systems, closing the window of exposure before it can be exploited.

KnowBe4 and similar platforms deliver the same content to every business. Your employees learn about phishing in general — not phishing targeting your industry, not social engineering attempts that reference your actual tools, not impersonation attacks that mimic your internal processes. AltaCom builds your training program around your specific environment: the software you use, the workflows your team follows, and the threats most likely to target a Calgary business in your sector. That specificity is what converts awareness training from a compliance checkbox into genuine security improvement.

Click2Learn is AltaCom's monthly live webinar series for client employees. Each session covers a current security topic — a new phishing campaign, a social engineering technique, a recent breach and what your team can learn from it — delivered by an AltaCom security professional. Sessions are 30–45 minutes, scheduled during business hours, and available to your full team regardless of location. Recordings are available for employees who can't attend live. It's consistent, ongoing security education that keeps your team sharp without disrupting the workday.

Yes. Most Canadian cyber insurers now require documented security awareness training as a condition of coverage. AltaCom provides training completion records, session logs, and trend reporting — exactly what underwriters ask for at renewal. We've helped Calgary businesses qualify for lower premiums and avoid coverage denial by demonstrating a consistent, documented training program. We can tailor reporting to meet specific insurer requirements upon request.

AltaCom Lunch & Learns are short, focused security sessions — typically 45–60 minutes — delivered in person at your office or virtually over Teams. We bring the content, you bring the team. Sessions are built around a specific topic relevant to your business: phishing recognition, password hygiene, safe use of your specific cloud tools, or responding to a suspicious email. They are conversational, not lecture-style, and your staff ask real questions and get real answers. Most Calgary clients run one per quarter as part of their ongoing security program.