What are the most common challenges in communicating cybersecurity risks to employees?

This may be the vital barrier in communicating cyber security risk to the employees. Many employees may not understand the real risk even they are using advanced systems & technologies also they might be also aware of the real world case studies around cybersecurity. The real problem may be to look at the how cybersecurity can be explained with simplicity & ease which can tighten with human psychology.

I am a huge advocate for teaching learners to teach what they’ve learned. Within your org, repetitive training on security awareness platforms barely scratch the surface. Your colleagues must have buy-in and a good method is to mobilize them into being ambassadors of your org's security and have them train their colleagues.

This is great best-practice and I'd go a step further - visual metaphors help to bring cyber concepts to life and make them memorable. An image in teams' minds is powerful. One which we've used that's effective when we communicate to organisations about building cyber resilience is that it's like layers and layers of Swiss cheese. No one single layer will be invulnerable on its own, but if you stack multiple layers on top of one another, they will ultimately close all the 'holes'.

The major problem employees have and not just employees but individuals who are not in the find of cybersecurity is the inability to understand certain terms and terminologies we use In Cybersecurity,making the communication of this risk difficult to understand. Even some cybersecurity officials have not come to terms with certain jargons at a layman level.. Now when they are called up to educate or create awareness they make the whole issue difficult to understand.

One common aspect I have noticed is not taking responsibility about it. The employees apart from the IT team take it as a normal thing. Little did they Cybersecurity isn't one team or person's job. Which is a serious area of concern.

The issue of cognitive bias is well displayed on how employees see Cyber security threat as non existent and can hardly happen to them. This is what I call optimism bias.. This on the other hand leads to lack of urgency in implementing security protocols.

Cognitive bias comes through long term practices and beliefs. Changing this kind of practice isn't easy at all. To make them understand and change their beliefs you need to have solid evidence to show them how it could have happened. Turning them from their beliefs and practices and from their own style to anticipated skill sets, you have to make them believe what you are trying to achieve and why you want them to know this. Act like you believe in what they say and try to convince them by giving real examples. This way you will be able to change their cognitive bias in a seamless way.

Conveying cybersecurity risks to employees faces obstacles like low awareness, confusing tech terms, limited training, and the belief that security slows things down. To overcome these, use clear language, provide accessible training, and directly address concerns for a more impactful communication.

One thing I have found useful is to make them part of the process, this would really help them to try and experience different use cases and determine best practices. Cyber security professionals can be creative and make intuitive trainings for employees to educate them in real-world scenarios (CTF, hackathon etc. are such few examples). This would certainly help to address cognitive biases.

Para superar problemas motivacionales en la ense?anza de seguridad a empleados, fomenta una cultura de conciencia. Usa programas de concientización para abordar la falta de interés y conocimiento. Destaca la conexión entre seguridad y éxito empresarial para contrarrestar las prioridades competitivas. Establece expectativas claras y roles específicos para promover la responsabilidad. Proporciona retroalimentación positiva y reconocimiento para crear un ambiente motivador y constructivo.

Organizations should also inculcate what I call reward system towards Security consciousness among their staffs this will help to promote cybersecurity protocols in Organizations. But if the opposite is the case employees might lack interest in cybersecurity risk Communication.

Motivational barriers can easily be adopted if you make them comfortable by listening to them. Listening to others will give them the confidence to open up. Changing their thoughts in security practices and their willingness is a daunting task in the first place. Making them understand why security is important is an essential need. And providing them rewards, utilize them for security awareness sessions and grant them on taking responsibility for training other employees will boost them no matter what profession they are into. For example, allowing them to train their colleagues will have a significant impact.

Keeping them motivated is key as cyber security is responsibility of everyone. There are few things I noticed would be extremely useful to engage employees - rewards for discovering and reporting vulnerabilities, identifying phishing emails etc..

Organizational structures and functions can lead to this condition. Security is not only the responsibility of the IT security teams. In fact it is everyone's tree responsibility. Everyone should obtain the right awareness of security. The senior management team should be made aware of this and redesign the organizational structure that would allow the sense of security to be reached out to each individual. This is the senior management team's responsibility.

Senior leadership support is must for successful cyber security program and leadership should set the tone for organization. It's also highest priority of cyber security leaders to understand organization priorities/business goals and align cyber security strategies to make this successful partnership. Secondly, articulating technical risks in simple business terms would be essential so everyone understands, follows and contributes to make it successful for an organization.

In my opinion, communication can be one the biggest challenge here. Cybersecurity risks are a combination of business, security, process, and technology. Usually the risks are written in a concise way which covers the impact in shortest words possible and articulating it in simple terms for different audiences becomes tough. I think use a common language that explains what is at stake, the losses, and how it will affect business as usual can be one way to simplify it.

Always keep your communications at the level of your audience. Make it so You get by in by all at every level If your organization and this will help improve communication up and down your organization.

Technical Jargon and ineffective communication and no awareness session and many other factors could be part of it. If you better communicate the message to right person at right time ?? matters a lot.

The security professionals are the middle man in any organization. They should be able to communicate with all employees. Delivering security sessions in an effective way is the vital task of the security professionals. Using the right tools, channels and slides makes the sessions deliver in an effective and efficient way.

One thing I have found useful is to have key cyber security policy and documents be available in local language based on organization structure and geographic presence. This would certainly increase participation from employees working from different parts of globe, this would also address any misinterpretation and communication barrier.

Communicating Cybersecurity risks - Challenges? Technical Specialists must just drop the jargon and keep it simple. Below are some of the approaches that work; 1. Awareness and Training sessions, in simple terms are critical 2. Drop all the jargon and focus on easily understood language. 3. Start thinking like the business teams and work backwards. 4. Give live examples where possible. 5. Use of videos and graphics enhances understanding 6. Focus on listening habits. Listen to Cybersecurity areas the business does not understand. 7. Learn from prior sessions and perfect the process through. Questions can be dealt with from these lessons. Once all the above has been achieved, the communication would have been archieved.

The culture of the organization and risk underestimating. Technical language always fails in this area, the security professionals should speak more understandable language and try to simulate the IT risk into life risk, for example: what the impact of driving a car that doesn’t have a good break? What the impact of keeping your house dooe unlocked? Such examples help people to understand and believe the IT risk then they can determine how to deal with thoses risk by avoidance, mitigate, transfer, or accept.

It may be relative to cognitive bias, that said I believe is deeper than that. Many people have already said it. Paraphrasing Bruce Schneier from many of his books and lectures: The main problem is cybersecurity is that as humans, we are not wired to feel at risk from a cybersecurity threat. As we are not physically threaten by any information risk or attack. As such, our intuition does not apply. As mentioned on earlier answers, as cybersecurity professionals we must provide real world examples of incidents and its consequences for real life people. As unfortunately, there is a lot of public information to leverage, try to use local examples to land it closer to the objective people.