Amazon announced a new security initiative that will help protect organizations and individuals from increasing cybersecurity threats. Starting in October, Amazon will make cybersecurity training materials it has developed to keep its employees and sensitive information safe from cyberattack available to the public.

“A fundamental problem when addressing current cybersecurity threats is education, which is why we’re excited to share our Amazon Security Awareness training for free, to help organizations and individuals understand how to navigate and fight against security events,” said Steve Schmidt, chief information security officer of AWS. “And by giving qualified AWS customers access to free MFA tokens, we’ve made it even easier for companies to use this powerful tool to protect their data and important technology assets."

Social engineering is a large vector for cybersecurity attacks. In some cases, phishing emails try to get employees to click a link and reveal their login credentials. In other cases, phone call scams try to get people to disclose personal information. People and organizations need security training to identify and keep themselves safe from these attacks, but often, they lack the time to take hours-long training courses, even when they are available and provide the right information. Amazon designed a digestible and succinct curriculum, used with its employees, to anticipate and educate people about possible security threats. Starting in October, Amazon will offer this Security Awareness training free of charge to both organizations and individuals. Businesses and organizations can also build their own solutions on top of the Amazon training to suit their needs. The Amazon Security Awareness training includes videos and online assessments. The materials follow proven neuroscience and adult learning principles to enhance content retention and they are regularly updated as digital attack techniques evolve.

The Amazon Security Awareness training is be available in 10 languages: English, Portuguese, Japanese, Italian, French, Chinese, Spanish, German, Korean, and American Sign Language, making it accessible for individuals and businesses on a wide scale. Organizations interested in deploying the training for their employees through their own Learning Management Systems (LMS), can download it from the AWS Security Learning site. For small businesses and startups, the training will be hosted in the AWS Training & Certification Learning Library.

In addition, Amazon announced that it will offer qualified Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers in the US a free multi-factor authentication (MFA) device designed to further secure their environments and protect their most sensitive assets from cyberattacks.

Learn more about other Amazon education programs. Discover AWS Training and Certification helping ambitious cloud developers boost their career.