Accenture Secure Behavior Score: Inspiring employees to elevate cybersecurity practices

With cybersecurity threats coming at organizations in many forms, employees need to be constantly vigilant in the ways of staying secure in their digital behaviors to avoid falling victim to cyberattacks.??

This is especially a challenge in a big company like Accenture where our people face many security rules, requirements, and tools that they need to be up to speed on—and in a cyber environment of ever-changing threats. The rise of deepfakes is just one example.??

Given these factors, it can be difficult for employees to know they are doing the right thing when it comes to security. Knowing this, our Information Security organization innovated on: how does Accenture go beyond training and inspire our people to stay current in their security practices? ?

Scoring for secure behaviors?

Inspired by consumer credit scoring and how credit reporting agencies create a single score and simple steps for people to improve their score, our Information Security Behavior Change team created something similar for security behaviors—we named it Secure Behavior Score.

The Secure Behavior Score is a single score for Accenture people that measures their personal secure behaviors, and most importantly, motivates continuous improvement, if needed, by providing simplified actions to get there, or by celebrating excellent behaviors. This scoring system uses performance data to deliver a tailored score for every individual at Accenture.??

This performance data includes:??

Device compliance – Captures whether an individual keeps all Accenture devices compliant with security requirements.?

Social engineering – Compiles results of internal phishing tests and enrollment in an optional advanced phishing test program.??

Information Security Advocate training completion – Collects status of whether an individual is up to date on their security training.??

Sensitive content protection – Includes an individual’s use of Accenture tools to limit who can access email content.?

CyberFest – Captures the facilitation of a CyberFest for a group of Accenture colleagues.?

Score boosting – Captures an activity such as visiting the Accenture First Ai-iD Kit and taking “Meet Your Digital Maker” training to learn about deepfakes.??

Each person can now see how well they’re doing to work securely in a visually engaging way: They see a simple dial that clearly designates which scores are good and which ones indicate a need for improvement through pleasing colors and smiley or frowning faces. Scores are placed into one of five dial categories—ranging from “Needs Attention” to “Top Notch.” Individuals can quickly see how far they are from the highest score possible. ?

The output identifies an individual’s gaps in security performance and behaviors and gives tailored recommendations for improvement to motivate behavior change. Individuals can drill down further, clicking into each of the contributing score data points for more information and helpful links related to improvement. Bite-sized, easy-to-understand training makes complex security concepts easier to grasp, remember, and apply. The experience is simple and seamless.?

Accenture leaders can also see an aggregate view of secure behaviors across the company, pinpoint risk, and drive targeted actions for improvement. As CISO, I share aggregate scores on a leaderboard to senior management.?

Innovative and effective?

The Secure Behavior Score is innovative and effective: It indicates not only our people’s knowledge and awareness of cybersecurity best practices, but also provides a quantifiable measure of their actual behavior and actions. It gives one clear numerical rating as well as personalized, actionable feedback on how our people can improve their cybersecurity ways to reduce the risk of breaches and attacks. It also recognizes and rewards the most secure and proactive employees and creates a culture of security excellence.?

It is a hugely successful tool. Our people love it. They share their score updates on Accenture’s internal social media channels, ask questions, and have created a community that thrives on celebrating one’s information security requirements. We’re also honored for the Secure Behavior Score to have recently been recognized with a Gold Brandon Hall Excellence in Technology Award in the Best Advance in Learning Management Technology category.?

Most importantly, the Secure Behavior Score solution has fostered improved security awareness and behavior across Accenture.?