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Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Cybersecurity training deserves funding when it addresses specific risks and capability gaps—not because a course can prevent every attack. Make the case with the people, processes and systems your organization needs to protect; fund learning matched to those needs; and measure whether staff can perform the relevant tasks. Training is one layer of defense, not a substitute for technical controls or a guaranteed way to reduce breach costs.
Why fund cybersecurity training now?
Threat data can establish urgency, but it cannot show that training alone would have stopped an incident. Verizon Business’s 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) analyzed more than 22,000 security incidents, including 12,195 confirmed breaches, covering November 1, 2023 through October 31, 2024. The report found a 34% increase in exploitation of vulnerabilities globally, ransomware present in 44% of breaches, and third-party involvement that doubled year over year. These are reasons to strengthen layered defensive capability, not proof that any specific course would have prevented those breaches. Verizon Business 2025 DBIR
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Training is relevant when people make decisions that affect those defenses: recognizing and reporting suspicious activity, following secure procedures, managing access, developing software, patching systems or responding to incidents. The business case is strongest when those responsibilities connect to risks already identified in the organization’s risk register, incidents, regulatory duties, customer commitments and operational plans.
IBM’s 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report put the average global breach cost at USD 4.44 million, down 9% from USD 4.88 million the prior year, based on a study of 600 breached organizations in 17 industries. That figure describes studied breach costs; it is not a forecast of savings from training or a return-on-investment estimate. IBM 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report
How to make a credible funding request
- Anchor the request in your organization’s risks. Identify the information and systems at stake, the processes that depend on them, relevant threats and incidents, and applicable obligations. Connect each proposed learning need to a specific risk or operational requirement. Use industry statistics as context, not as evidence of your organization’s likely losses.
- Map learning to people’s work. A general awareness course may suit a broad workforce, but managers, finance teams, developers, IT administrators, incident responders and executives have different responsibilities. Use the NICE Workforce Framework for Cybersecurity to describe cybersecurity work and relevant roles. Its Cybersecurity Curriculum Development role, for example, is “Responsible for developing, planning, coordinating, and evaluating cybersecurity awareness, training, or education content, methods, and techniques based on instructional needs and requirements.”
- Propose a program, not a content library. NIST SP 800-50 Rev. 1, Building a Cybersecurity and Privacy Learning Program, is an official resource for designing and evaluating a learning program. Use it to frame objectives, audiences and evaluation as an ongoing effort rather than a once-a-year checkbox or an unstructured purchase of courses.
- Price a bounded plan. Specify audiences, learning objectives, delivery format, staff time, implementation needs, accessibility and language requirements, and a staged rollout. Ask providers for quotes based on your headcount and delivery model; a universal current price is not established. Include employee time as well as provider or platform costs.
- Define success before launch. Record a baseline, choose measures that correspond to learning objectives, and set a review date. Completion can show participation; it cannot by itself demonstrate capability or business impact.
Verizon Business’s vice president of global cybersecurity solutions, Chris Novak, urged businesses to invest in measures including “strong password policies, timely patching of vulnerabilities, and comprehensive security awareness training for employees.” Training belongs alongside such controls; it does not replace them.
What to measure to show whether training is working
Choose measures that test the intended behavior or skill, and review them by audience or role so that a workforce-wide average does not hide gaps. Depending on the objective, useful measures include:
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- Participation and knowledge: completion, assessment performance and changes from a baseline.
- Recognition and reporting: whether people use the expected reporting channel, how quickly they report a suspected event, and whether the report contains information responders need.
- Practical performance: exercise results, response quality or a hands-on task completed to the required standard.
- Operational indicators: relevant control findings or recurring process failures that the learning was intended to address.
Use results to revise the program: reinforce weak skills, change examples that do not fit a role, and reassess whether the selected measure reflects the objective. A reduction in simulated phishing clicks alone does not establish that the organization’s breach probability has fallen. No universal training ROI figure is established by the cited materials; report observed learning and operational outcomes without presenting them as proven breach-cost savings.
How to choose cybersecurity training
CISA’s NICCS Education & Training Catalog is a starting point for finding online and in-person courses, including options for skills development, certification preparation and career transition. A catalog listing is not an endorsement or a guarantee of quality, current price or availability. Confirm details with the provider. NICCS Education & Training Catalog
Compare candidate courses against the needs you defined, not just their titles or certification labels:
- Does the intended audience and content align with the relevant NICE work role?
- What skills or behaviors is the course designed to develop, and at what proficiency level?
- What prerequisites apply?
- Is delivery instructor-led, online, hands-on or blended, and how much work time will it require?
- Can the course meet accessibility and language needs?
- What is the total cost, including staff time and implementation?
- How are learning and performance assessed, and what evidence supports the provider’s claims?
- Who provides the training, and how current is its content?
Can a grant or other funding source pay for training?
There is no generally applicable grant, subsidy or tax treatment established here for cybersecurity training. Availability and eligibility depend on jurisdiction, sector, organization size and program rules. Check relevant government workforce-development or sector-specific programs and your organization’s learning and procurement budgets; verify current terms directly before including funding in a plan. NICCS is a course-discovery resource, not a funding award.
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What training cannot do
Training supports layered defense, but it cannot guarantee prevention of attacks or replace multifactor authentication, timely patching, access controls, incident response or secure system design. The DBIR statistics describe observed incidents, and breach-cost averages describe studied losses; neither demonstrates that training alone caused fewer breaches or will return a specific amount. Fund learning where it addresses a defined organizational need, then evaluate what participants can do and whether that capability supports the controls and operations at stake.
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