Yes - You Can Lead a Security Culture Change
Executives Leverage SecuritySense to Persuasively Motivate the Entire Company
What’s the goal of security awareness? It certainly isn’t knowledge. It’s attitude and behavior change. Passing along information alone is never going to achieve your goal of a creating a more cyber-savvy employee mindset that governs reactions, choices and decisions.
Most CISOs, CSOs and their teams are doing everything there is to be done to mitigate risk but often fall short when it comes to energizing the company’s employees.
In addition to being the engine that allows your team to execute, SecuritySense offers you as a leader everything required to articulate a persuasive vision your company will respond to.
- Achieve Higher Levels of Risk Mitigation
- Get People to Feel More Accountable
- Convert Knowledge Into Behavior Change
Awareness Training Isn't Enough Because Knowledge Is Not Enough
Think about it. Training and education isn’t enough because knowledge is not enough.
When we talk about “employee security awareness” we actually don’t mean that our people know about phishing or social engineering or understand the impact of ransomware. What we really mean by awareness is a new mindset. We hope the knowledge we give them converts into a motivation to engage more securely in the workplace.
When you only aim at knowledge, you’re not aiming high enough. Aim for true security awareness. Aim for a synergy of knowledge and persuasive motivation.
- Aim for a greater level of risk mitigation
- Training without persuasive motivation is a weak recipe
Is Your Risk Strategy Incomplete?
There are three strategies for mitigating the risk of employee behavior and negligence. Most companies have the first two covered but haven’t cracked the code on the third. The reason that this is a problem is because it means most companies aren’t aiming at the highest possible level of risk mitigation.
The first two strategies are foundational, task oriented and take a defensive posture. The last strategy is transformative, vision-oriented and takes an assertive posture. This is the strategy for driving a security culture change in your organization.
- Technology and Policy
- Training and Education
- Persuasive Motivation
One of the things that makes your job tough is all that risk tied to employee behaviors and the choices they make as they go about their workday. Even with all the knowledge you’ve given them, the people in your company don’t always convert that information into the kind of cyber-savvy mindset you’re looking for.
Any major incident (a successful ransomware attack, say) will take the shine right off of your best laid plans and tend to discredit your overall risk strategy . That’s why you can’t afford to have an incomplete risk mitigation strategy.
Executing on persuasive motivation accomplishes three things for you:
- The highest level of risk mitigation
- People will feel like security is a shared responsibilty
- Incidents and breaches won't come down to a simple pass/fail on you and your team
Persuasive Motivation - Change Your Brand
It doesn’t need to be complicated but you have to articulate a vision if you want everyone to come together and share the responsibility for protecting the company. Otherwise it’s a pass/fail down to you and your team alone.
People will accept your message because you’re the leader, but that doesn’t mean they embrace your message. And embracing your message, your vision, is what you need to get people motivated and feeling a greater sense of sharing the security responsibility.
Is the security brand you have now the one you want?
Ask yourself 3 questions:
- What's the positive security brand vision at your company that people can see themselves fitting into?
- How do you move them from just feeling neutral (or maybe even negative) about your message to being more proactive, curious and engaged?
- What are you doing to ensure an ROI on training and education spend that goes further than just "knowledge"?
What does a good security brand vision look like?
- A good brand vision shows people "What's in it for me?" and by doing so instantly raises their level of interest and enthusiasm
- Setting a vision that benefits every individual in the company brings high favorability to your program
- A good security brand vision makes it clear you're the leader but successfully enlists everyone to contribute - you and your team can't do it all on your own
- Proactively laying out a security brand vision brings positive visibility to your leadership and overall risk mitigation strategy
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Follow 3 Steps to Change Your Security Brand
Not only does SecuritySense empower your team to execute, it gives you everything you need to articulate a persuasive security brand vision your company will respond to. Learn more about how to get everyone on the same side by painting the picture of a cyber-savvy company.