CISO Guide: Building a Cybersecurity Attitude in Organizational Culture

The Cost of Not Focusing on Security Culture

While technology-based defenses continually improve, 82% of data breaches are still caused by social engineering or human error. This highlights the crucial need to enhance human factor defenses as well.

Employees are the most attractive targets for hackers due to their vulnerability and susceptibility to manipulation. The behaviors of your employees can be the difference between protection and breach. Employees can either be easy prey, or an effective human layer of defense!

Many organizations with a weak security culture often believe that "security is always somebody else’s responsibility." We aim to change this perspective and ensure that the entire organization shares a sense of ownership.

To instill belief in your security plans among employees, this article will discuss how CISOs can build a security awareness culture within their organization, offering practical actions that can be implemented immediately.

What Does Security Culture Mean?

Security culture encompasses the collective beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of a group that influence its security posture. All members of a company, not just the IT department, should be engaged in building a strong security culture.

This involves increasing awareness, establishing policies, and delivering training. A solid security culture plays a key role in reducing risks and protecting your organization from brand damage, reputational loss, and financial hardship.

Creating a Cybersecurity Culture vs. Cybersecurity Training

There are misconceptions between cybersecurity culture and cybersecurity training. The truth is cybersecurity training is a part of cybersecurity culture. It is just one element of a larger organization-wide effort to ensure strong security practices.

Cybersecurity training can be an effective first step to strengthen an organization’s first line of defense. However, creating a cybersecurity culture involves implementing attitudes, beliefs, and values centered around cybersecurity throughout the organization. This approach emphasizes the importance of cybersecurity as part of the organization's overall culture, rather than just a one-time training session.

Getting Leadership Support

Before discussing practical actions, it’s crucial for CISOs to secure leadership support. Without it, all other efforts may be futile.

To gain leadership support, CISOs should:

• Frame the issue of human security awareness as a business risk by focusing on the impact and quantifying the risk.
• Present a cost-benefit analysis by highlighting the ROI.
• Demonstrate alignment with industry standards by researching potential competitive advantages.
• Show that building a cybersecurity culture builds trust with customers, partners, and investors by highlighting the company’s commitment to security.

Building a Security Awareness Culture in Five Steps

1. Retention Employee Training

Many organizations offer security awareness training only once or twice a year to comply with regulations. However, building a cybersecurity culture requires continuity and consistency.

Plan a weekly program with various activities, including a gamified approach, phishing simulations, short quizzes, and security awareness training.

Retention and regularity are key to turning knowledge into real behavior.

2. Assess The Current State

Understand what you have and what you need. Tailor your message to different groups within your organization.

Identify the following:

• Stakeholders who can help with the cybersecurity awareness program.
• Stakeholders who would benefit most from a cybersecurity awareness program.
• Training objectives for each target group.
• The best way to deliver training to each group (e.g., seminars, e-learning, simulations).
• The training and awareness plan, including who will perform the training and how it will be monitored.

3. Establish Clear Policies and Procedures

88% of employees had no clue about their organization’s IT security policy.

Develop comprehensive cybersecurity policies and procedures that outline employee responsibilities, such as how to contact cybersecurity department in case of a cyber threat, how to report incidents, and who to go with security questions.

Clearly communicate these policies to all employees in a simple and easy-to-understand manner.

4. Reward and Recognize

Encourage, and reward employees who prioritize security. Celebrate their achievements publicly and share success stories to inspire others.

5. Track Your Culture Over Time

Establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness of your security awareness programs, such as completion rates, policy compliance, and performance on security-related tasks.

Consistently reinforce your message and report on the cybersecurity posture of employees regularly.

Implement a Secure Development Lifecycle

Include security requirements, threat modeling, and testing in each software release to prioritize security in the development process.

Regularly Update and Patch Systems

Encourage employees to perform OS updates promptly by recognizing and rewarding their efforts. Include this as a KPI to ensure compliance.