Cybersecurity training is a crucial part of corporate welfare in the digital age. The downside is that the necessary courses and sessions are often monotonous, boring and seen as a chore for most employees.

To counteract this problem, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) outsourced an escape room company to run a cybersecurity-themed escape game to raise awareness during their Cybersecurity Awareness Month.

HHS had 72 employees split into 8 teams participate in the escape room sessions. The 1-hour sessions were split into a 20 minutes hands-on exercise, which was followed by a 30-minute discussion and a 10-minute quiz.

A HHS spokeswoman said, “The escape room challenges included how to identify and use two factor authentication, recognize phishing emails, identify personally identifiable information, find unsecure Wi-Fi access points and physical computer security.”

The escape room will provide a fun and educational learning experience to HHS employees, as well as valuable feedback and how they can improve the exercise for future participants.

One participant said, “It was extremely interactive, and reinforced and explained some of the rules that I would have otherwise discarded as too burdensome or not necessary for added security.”

The escape room exercise was deemed to be a major hit with all players.