How can you keep security awareness best practices top of mind?

Educating and empowering users to understand the importance of cybersecurity and proper computer etiquette is what will make attackers' jobs that much harder. Many times, security can be seen as an afterthought or something that's generally not as important until something happens. Then, organizations want to put protective measures in place. It starts with end users and educating them. We should be able to break things related to cyber down so simply that they really understand the risks of clicking links they aren’t familiar with, weak passwords, and not having MFA. If we taught users to understand the risks and what's on the line, this would create a more secure environment for organizations and help protect data and systems.

Initiate a robust security awareness program by first educating and empowering your employees. Offer regular, relevant training on the latest threats, risks, and best practices. Emphasize the importance of security, its impact on their work and the organization, and actions they can take for protection. Ensure the training is interactive, engaging, and customized to specific roles through methods like online courses, webinars, quizzes, games, simulations, or workshops.

First of all is important to establish the goal of our efforts. I usually find that awareness is only one out of the three components that we need to address for our goal, behavior change. We always need 2 additional ones, learning, because then user doesn’t only need to know how important is cybersecurity, but they need to know how to do things properly. And the final component, create habits, because many of the thing we do when dealing with tech are almost automatic, so we need to create new habits to substitute the old ones.

As a security leader, I find the best way to educate and empower is by sharing personal experiences. Like I might relate the time I was duped into clicking a well crafted phishing email. In my defence, it was an extremely well crafted spear-phishing email sent to me by my organizations security awareness testing team. But the moral is that even experts like myself are fallible. A little but of vulnerability can go a long way towards relating to others on a human level.

To keep security awareness best practices top of mind, I regularly conduct training sessions and workshops for employees. I emphasize the importance of strong passwords, caution with emails, and vigilance against phishing attacks. I also disseminate regular reminders and updates about emerging threats and techniques to mitigate them. Moreover, I encourage an open-door policy for reporting any security concerns or incidents promptly. By fostering a culture of security awareness, I ensure that every team member understands their role in safeguarding our organization's assets.

The next step in maintaining top-of-mind security awareness practices is fostering communication and collaboration with your employees. Establish a feedback loop to monitor and enhance your security awareness program's effectiveness. Encourage employees to share questions, concerns, and suggestions through channels like newsletters, blogs, podcasts, social media, forums, or surveys. Cultivate a collaborative and trusting culture where incidents can be reported, assistance sought, and learning occurs without fear of blame or punishment.

Communicating and collaborating with employees are crucial steps in maintaining a strong cybersecurity culture. By establishing a feedback loop, encouraging employee engagement, fostering a culture of collaboration and trust, utilizing various communication channels, and providing reporting and help channels, organizations can enhance security awareness and response capabilities. Open communication and collaboration build a strong defense against cyber threats and empower employees to actively contribute to the protection of the organization's digital assets.

Fostering a culture of communication and trust encourages employees to interact with security teams. It can lead to higher incident reporting and earlier discussions of security related items during projects. Fear of blame or “getting in the way” are often deterrents.

When it comes to communication and collaboration, let’s stress the significance of establishing open channels where employees can report incidents without fear of repercussion. Let’s advocate for a system that rewards proactive security measures and shares success stories to inspire vigilant behavior across the board. It’s about creating a culture where security is a shared responsibility, and every team member is an active participant in defending against threats. #CybersecurityAwareness #EmployeeEmpowerment #CyberSafetyCulture #ProactiveDefense

To keep security awareness best practices top of mind, foster open communication and collaboration among all team members. Regularly share updates, threats, and success stories through meetings, newsletters, or security bulletins. Encourage feedback and discussions on security topics to build a culture of security. Utilize collaborative tools and platforms for real-time sharing of information and best practices. This approach not only spreads awareness but also encourages a proactive stance towards cybersecurity within the organization.

The third stride in prioritizing security awareness best practices is to acknowledge and commend your employees. Recognize their dedication to security protocols and contributions to the overall security culture. Incentivize and motivate ongoing learning and improvement in security skills and behaviors using methods like gamification, badges, certificates, prizes, bonuses, or promotions. Additionally, celebrate and showcase success stories and best practices within your employees, teams, or departments.

Reward and recognize: #Continuous Training and Education: Offer ongoing training sessions, workshops, or webinars on security topics to keep employees updated and engaged. Recognize employees who actively participate in training sessions or achieve certifications related to cybersecurity. #Peer Recognition: Encourage peer-to-peer recognition programs where employees can nominate their colleagues for demonstrating exemplary security behaviors. Implement a system where employees can publicly acknowledge and commend their peers for their contributions to security awareness. #Leadership Support: Ensure that leaders and managers actively participate in recognizing and rewarding employees for their dedication to security practices.

In my experience, it’s often better to dangle the carrot than use the stick. Rewards and recognition are great motivational tools. They also help keep the feedback loop going. Friendly competition between teams can also be beneficial.

Rewarding and recognizing employees for their commitment to cybersecurity awareness is vital for maintaining a strong security culture. By acknowledging and appreciating their efforts, incentivizing and motivating them, utilizing gamification and badges, offering prizes and bonuses, and celebrating success stories, organizations can encourage and reinforce good security behaviors. Recognizing employees' contributions not only boosts morale but also fosters a sense of pride and ownership in protecting the organization's digital assets.

To keep security awareness best practices top of mind, implement a reward and recognition program. Acknowledge and reward employees for proactive security behaviors, such as identifying phishing attempts or following protocols diligently. Recognition can be in the form of public acknowledgment, awards, or tangible rewards. This encourages a security-first culture, motivates staff to adhere to best practices, and reinforces the importance of security within the organization. Positive reinforcement makes security awareness more engaging and memorable.

You can purchase all the cybersecurity tooling you want but in the end, you have to remember that the human attack vector (i.e. your employees) is still an open and weak link. Running an active phishing simulation campaign is probably the best thing you can do to educate your employees on the types of emails a threat actor might send them. Examples of good solutions include Knowbe4, Cofense and Living Security. Your email security solution from Mimecast, Proofpoint, Microsoft or others may also have this bundled in. Remember to use these phishing awareness campaigns! If employees fail the test ensure that they go through a training exercise - make it long to push them to pay attention next time. Vigilance is key here.

The fourth measure in upholding top-of-mind security awareness best practices is to challenge and assess your employees. Expose them to realistic scenarios that evaluate their knowledge, skills, and attitudes regarding security. Offer constructive feedback and guidance to enhance their performance and prevent mistakes. Employ methods like phishing simulations, penetration testing, audits, or drills. Regularly update and adapt the difficulty and frequency of challenges and tests based on the evolving threat landscape and the learning progress of your employees.

Challenge and test: #Conduct regular phishing simulations to assess employees' ability to recognize and report phishing emails. Provide immediate feedback to employees who fall for simulated phishing attempts, highlighting the red flags they missed and offering guidance on how to improve their detection skills. #Stage social engineering scenarios, such as phone calls or in-person visits, to test employees' resilience against manipulation tactics used by attackers. Analyze employees' responses and behaviors during these exercises to identify areas for improvement in awareness and response protocols. #Engage external security professionals or internal red teams to conduct penetration tests against the organization's systems and networks.

Challenging and testing employees play a crucial role in maintaining strong security awareness and practices within an organization. By exposing employees to realistic scenarios, such as phishing simulations, penetration testing, audits, or drills, organizations can assess their knowledge, skills, and attitudes toward security. Providing constructive feedback and guidance on improving performance reinforces good security practices and helps employees avoid mistakes. Regularly updating and adjusting the difficulty and frequency of challenges ensures that employees stay vigilant in the face of evolving threats.

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tools and services collect and analyze security logs from employee devices, firewalls, routers, etc. The logs are searched for malicious activity and retained for whatever length of time your employees require. Most breaches result from a phishing email. Regular security awareness training dramatically reduces the number of cybersecurity incidents.

The fifth strategy for prioritizing security awareness best practices is to lead and exemplify by example. Showcase commitment and accountability to security as a leader and role model, aligning actions and decisions with organizational security policies and values. Employ methods like setting clear goals, offering resources and support, enforcing consequences and rewards, and sharing personal experiences and lessons learned. Inspire and influence employees to embrace a security mindset by following your lead.

To ensure that security awareness best practices remain a top priority, leadership, at all levels, must actively model these behaviors. By consistently adhering to security best practices themselves, leaders set a clear example for others to follow. Through regular communication, training sessions, and recognition of compliant behavior, leaders can foster a culture where security is ingrained into daily operations and valued by all members of the organization. This commitment from leadership not only promotes a safer environment but also encourages employees to actively participate in maintaining security standards.

"If those at your top are weak, your bottom will be rotten" - Benny Bellamacina. Any information security initiative will be successful, if it is executed in a top-down approach where the top management (leadership) sets the tone and the influence is reflected within the organization accordingly. Likewise, information security awareness best practices can be implemented well, if the top management leads by example and aligns information security with organizational objectives/goals of the organization. For the leadership, this is also one way of showing commitment to information security.

Leading and modeling by example is a key component of maintaining a strong cybersecurity awareness culture. By demonstrating commitment and accountability, aligning actions with security policies, setting clear goals, providing resources and support, enforcing consequences and rewards, and sharing experiences and lessons learned, leaders can inspire and influence employees to adopt a security mindset. This creates a culture where security is prioritized, and employees are empowered to actively contribute to the protection of the organization's digital assets.

Fostering a culture of robust security awareness is intricately linked to the principles of leadership and modeling. Leadership entails the proactive guidance and direction provided by administrators and influential figures within the institution. By emphasizing the importance of security best practices, allocating resources for security initiatives, and setting a strong example, leaders can effectively shape the overarching security culture.

Security awareness programming is an ongoing initiative that should evolve and improve over time to enhance its effectiveness, fostering a culture and mindset of security among individuals within the organization.

Como en cualquier proceso de una compa?ía, el último paso es evaluar los resultados de dicho plan para monitorizar si dicha inversión ha sido eficaz en el propósito de mitigación de riesgos, resiliencia y cumplimiento regulatorio, para impulsar lo que más ha funcionado y descartar lo que no ha dado los resultados esperados, así como consultar a los propios emplead@s para tener su feedback, comprobar las medidas necesarias ante las nuevas regulaciones como NIS2 y preguntar en el mercado (partners y CISOs) por diferentes escenarios. Siempre teniendo en cuenta y concienciando a emplead@s que la ciberseguridad es básica para asegurar la continuidad de los negocios.

Audits and compliance with policies have always been necessary and advantageous. Solves most of the incidents before occurrence and reduces resources spent of other operations as well.

Cybersecurity is not only a technical issue but also a strategic and competitive one. Companies face increasing risks of cyberattacks, data breaches, and ransomware. Your customers are aware of threats and demand high-security standards from service providers. Most firms receive information security requirements from their customers regularly. Meeting these requirements demands a combination of policies, procedures, and technical resources. Putting policies and procedures in place can be time-consuming and is best completed as part of an industry-standard compliance such as ISO 27001. Putting the technical requirements in place does not need to be time-consuming since most firms already have the basic technical requirements in place.

Apart from the steps mentioned above, I want to share my perspective on how we can keep security practices on top. Building the security framework for domains like Network & Infrastructure, Cloud, Data, Identity, AI, and Application aligned to the business we do within the Company not only narrows down the scope but also helps educate the business executives, developers, and other professionals about the cyber security requirements during development, acquisitions, purchasing products, avoiding duplication, guiding customers, etc. Besides, after building the relevant frameworks, it's necessary to socialize, take feedback, incorporate changes, and regularly update as per the latest regulations (as applicable).

Beyond formal strategies, fostering a culture where security is part of the organizational ethos can lead to sustainable security practices that adapt and grow with both the organization and the threat landscape.

Security awareness is something that is built over time. Therefore, it is important to create measurements that will evaluate the effectiveness of your awareness program and build specific trainings that will focus on the weakest areas. Building an organizational security culture is a marathon, not a sprint. The culture will be build based on trainings but not only. Also, the repetitive daily operations with your employees will end up building effective awareness across the org.

If you want to improve and/or keep security awareness top of mind, you will need to help everyone understand the "why." This will require leadership modeling, informal along with formal communication, and one thing I have found that has helped is to share recent breaches and news on the consequences. The MGM hack is a great example to share, as one recent one, along with many more.