How Do You Promote a Culture of Security Awareness Among Your Team?

How Do You Promote a Culture of Security Awareness Among Your Team?

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital threats, fostering a culture of security awareness is paramount. We've gathered insights from Cybersecurity Consultants and Security Engineers, distilling their strategies into five key approaches. From engaging teams with fun, relevant training to monitoring security with comprehensive dashboards, discover how experts are enhancing security awareness within their organizations.

• Engage with Fun, Relevant Training
• Gamify Compliance for Team Engagement
• Conduct Interactive, Hands-On Training
• Lean In with Real-World Problem Solving
• Monitor Security with Comprehensive Dashboard

Engage with Fun, Relevant Training

Measure before training with quizzes. Then provide fun, engaging training that relates to home use, so people actually care about learning.

Follow it up with small, short snippets of information to reinforce learnings. Offer one a week, about a minute long, and try to do this at staff meetings so people can't multitask. Invite discussion on the topic, so people may ask questions or share stories of scams they've encountered.

Build internal capacity with 'go-to' people (often called ambassadors). These are the people that staff come to with questions or concerns, and they must be supportive and nurturing.

Measure again. Is it working? Has knowledge increased, have behaviors changed, is the reporting rate increasing? If so, keep doing what you are doing. If not, do something different—different initiatives, games, competitions. Find what works for your company, and keep improving.

Gamify Compliance for Team Engagement

Why limit ourselves to one strategy for our team when we can have a wider impact on the whole organization?

Back in 2012, I instinctively knew that incorporating my gaming experience into my work could shift our organization's culture to one that was both risk-conscious and cyber-aware. This insight led to the creation of 'Avoid a Fine from the ICO,' my spin on 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,' with a unique twist.

One Sunday evening in my kitchen, I transformed a dull compliance topic into an engaging game. Instead of playing as individuals, I organized a tournament where different cohorts within the organization competed against each other. The goal was not to win a million pounds but to start with a fine of £500,000 and reduce it to zero through correct answers. Prizes were awarded through a winners' raffle, adding an element of fun and competition.

The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. What was traditionally a boring topic—data protection—had become an engaging and enjoyable session. Participants were both learning and actively applying their knowledge in a competitive yet cooperative environment; a fragile balance catering to different people's motivations.

In the years since, research has consistently demonstrated the effectiveness of game-based learning and gamification techniques in non-game contexts. These methods enhance engagement, retention, and application of knowledge, proving invaluable in fostering a security-conscious culture.

So, my recommended strategy? Be creative, and game on!

Conduct Interactive, Hands-On Training

An effective strategy that I have used is running regular, crafted, interactive training sessions for my team, leading to security awareness. These sessions are based on actual incidents, involve practical hands-on activities, and phishing tests, making learning interesting and applicable.

Asking questions and getting involved in activities are ways through which team members can be motivated to get involved; this, in turn, ensures the continuous reinforcement of good cybersecurity habits by my team in an open environment.

Moreover, I have put in place a recognition program for appreciating employees who portray superior security practices so that it acts as an encouragement to all. By so doing, security is incorporated as a fundamental aspect of our day-to-day activities rather than as something done in hindsight.

Lean In with Real-World Problem Solving

We run the typical security-awareness programs and mandatory annual training, but our most impactful work comes from leaning in. My team and I are responsible for security detection and response, but the most important part of the work we do is breach prevention. It's here we lean in on real-world problems our teams and colleagues are trying to solve. This is always a balance of product or service delivery while maintaining the high security standards we set.

My team gets their hands dirty, taking ownership of what they can and providing either direct technical support or acutely guided security recommendations. This fosters a culture of winning together, being a part of the bigger team. It means more work finds us as we grow our reputation in the business, but it's the right thing to do, keeping our security culture as a strong cultural pillar.

Monitor Security with Comprehensive Dashboard

One of the key strategies I have implemented to cultivate a strong security culture within our team is the use of a comprehensive security dashboard. This dashboard is essential for continuously monitoring and enhancing the security posture of our team's services.

The security dashboard pulls data from multiple sources, like the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database, which provides information on vulnerabilities and their associated risks; open-source vulnerability (OSV) databases, which highlight potential threats impacting widely-used open-source components; and our company's baseline security standards, ensuring that all our services adhere to internal security requirements. By analyzing data from these diverse sources, a performance score is generated for each service and component, reflecting how well they meet established security benchmarks.

The generated scores are reviewed daily as part of our stand-ups. This routine allows us to swiftly identify areas where our security posture may be lacking and implement proactive measures to mitigate these risks.