A practical approach
I had a pleasure of sharing some practical lessons on building resilience at the Cybersecurity Summit.
I touched on sustainable performance strategies and the importance of body, emotions, mind and purpose in preventing burnout.
Protecting systems starts with protecting the people who run them.
I’m thrilled to share that I’ve recently earned the GIAC Strategic Planning, Policy, and Leadership (GSTRT) certification- a milestone that validates my ability to architect and sustain cybersecurity programs with a sharp focus on business value and executive alignment.
The festive period can bring joy, but it can also be a time of loneliness and stress, which is why it’s so important to check in with ourselves and others.
One way I’ve had the chance to contribute is through volunteering as a telephone crisis supporter with Lifeline Australia. I’ve been answering calls from people who may be facing one of the toughest moments of their lives. Every conversation reinforces the power of simply being there for someone when they need it most.
One of the most moving parts of this role is hearing the shift in a caller’s voice – from distress to a sense of calm – because they feel heard, supported and not alone. It’s a small moment that can make a big difference.
As we head into the holidays, remember that you’re not alone either. If you’re struggling, reach out – whether to a friend, family member or a service like Lifeline. And if you’re looking for a meaningful way to give back, I can’t recommend volunteering with Lifeline enough. It’s been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
Take care of yourself and those around you this holiday season. Let’s make kindness, connection and understanding the greatest gifts we give.
Negotiation is a core skill that can make or break your success as a CISO.
While technical expertise is important, it’s equally critical to recognise the value of negotiation skills in cyber security leadership. By developing and applying strong negotiation skills, you’ll be better equipped to lead your organisation in an increasingly complex and challenging cyber security landscape.
I recently completed a negotiations workshop by Filip Hron and highly recommend him as a facilitator and his book ‘Negotiations Evolved’. I particularly appreciate his focus on ethics and value creation.
In this blog, I outline how some of the skills can be applied to the cybersecurity context.
I’ve been invited to to share my thoughts on human-centric security at the Macquarie University Cyber Security Industry Workshop.
Drawing on insights from The Psychology of Information Security and my experience in the field, I outlined some of the reasons for friction between security and business productivity and suggested a practical approach to a building a better security culture in organisations.
It was great to be able to contribute to the collaboration between the industry, government and academia on this topic.
Why your staff ignore security policies and what to do about it.
Dale Carnegie’s 1936 bestselling self-help book How To Win Friends And Influence People is one of those titles that sits unloved and unread on most people’s bookshelves. But dust off its cover and crack open its spine, and you’ll find lessons and anecdotes that are relevant to the challenges associated with shaping people’s behaviour when it comes to cyber security.
In one chapter, Carnegie tells the story of George B. Johnson, from Oklahoma, who worked for a local engineering company. Johnson’s role required him to ensure that other employees abide by the organisation’s health and safety policies. Among other things, he was responsible for making sure other employees wore their hard hats when working on the factory floor.
His strategy was as follows: if he spotted someone not following the company’s policy, he would approach them, admonish them, quote the regulation at them, and insist on compliance. And it worked — albeit briefly. The employee would put on their hard hat, and as soon as Johnson left the room, they would just as quickly remove it. So he tried something different: empathy. Rather than addressing them from a position of authority, Johnson spoke to his colleagues almost as though he was their friend, and expressed a genuine interest in their comfort. He wanted to know if the hats were uncomfortable to wear, and that’s why they didn’t wear them when on the job.
Instead of simply reciting the rules as chapter-and-verse, he merely mentioned it was in the best interest of the employee to wear their helmets, because they were designed to prevent workplace injuries.
This shift in approach bore fruit, and workers felt more inclined to comply with the rules. Moreover, Johnson observed that employees were less resentful of management.
The parallels between cyber security and George B. Johnson’s battle to ensure health-and-safety compliance are immediately obvious. Our jobs require us to adequately address the security risks that threaten the organisations we work for. To be successful at this, it’s important to ensure that everyone appreciates the value of security — not just engineers, developers, security specialists, and other related roles.
This isn’t easy. On one hand, failing to implement security controls can result in an organisation facing significant losses. However, badly-implemented security mechanisms can be worse: either by obstructing employee productivity or by fostering a culture where security is resented.
To ensure widespread adoption of secure behaviour, security policy and control implementations not only have to accommodate the needs of those that use them, but they also must be economically attractive to the organisation. To realise this, there are three factors we need to consider: motivation, design, and culture.
I’ve been asked to share my views on creating a security culture at the workplace with The State of Security.
I believe the goal is not to teach tricks, but to create a new culture which is accepted and understood by everyone. In order to effectively do so, messages need to be designed and delivered according to each type of employee: there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all security campaign. Questions that must always be answered include: What are the benefits? What does it matter or why should I care? What impact do my actions have?
Security campaigns must discard scare tactics such as threatening employees with sanctions for breaches. Campaigns should be oriented towards the users’ goals and values, as well as the values of the organisation, such as professionalism and delivery.
A security campaign should emphasise that employees can cause serious damage to an organisation when they engage in non-compliant behaviour, even if it appears to be in an insignificant way. They should understand that they are bearing some responsibility for the security of the organisation and its exposure to risk.
Furthermore, the entire organisation needs to perceive security as bringing value to the company, as opposed to being an obstacle preventing employees from doing their job. It is important for employees to understand that they contribute to the smooth and efficient operation of business processes when they follow recommended security practices, just as security enables the availability of resources that support these processes.
I wrote about my book in the previous post. Here I would like to share what others have to say about it.
“So often information security is viewed as a technical discipline – a world of firewalls, anti-virus software, access controls and encryption. An opaque and enigmatic discipline which defies understanding, with a priesthood who often protect their profession with complex concepts, language and most of all secrecy.
Leron takes a practical, pragmatic and no-holds barred approach to demystifying the topic. He reminds us that ultimately security depends on people – and that we all act in what we see as our rational self-interest – sometimes ill-informed, ill-judged, even downright perverse.
No approach to security can ever succeed without considering people – and as a profession we need to look beyond our computers to understand the business, the culture of the organisation – and most of all, how we can create a security environment which helps people feel free to actually do their job.”
David Ferbrache OBE, FBCS
Technical Director, Cyber Security
KPMG UK
“This is an easy-to-read, accessible and simple introduction to information security. The style is straightforward, and calls on a range of anecdotes to help the reader through what is often a complicated and hard to penetrate subject. Leron approaches the subject from a psychological angle and will be appealing to both those of a non-technical and a technical background.”
Dr David King
Visiting Fellow of Kellogg College
University of Oxford
I was invited to participate in a panel discussion at a workshop on digital decision-making and risk-taking hosted by the Decision, Attitude, Risk & Thinking (DART) research group at Kingston Business School.
During the workshop, we addressed the human dimension in issues arising from increasing digital interconnectedness with a particular focus on cyber security risks and cyber safety in web-connected organisations.
We identified behavioural challenges in cyber security such as insider threats, phishing emails, security culture and achieving stakeholder buy-in. We also outlined a potential further research opportunity which could tackle behavioural security risks inherent in the management of organisational information assets.
Building on the connection between breaking security policies and cheating, let’s look at a study[1] that asked participants to solve 20 simple maths problems and promised 50 cents for each correct answer.
The participants were allowed to check their own answers and then shred the answer sheet, leaving no evidence of any potential cheating. The results demonstrated that participants reported solving, on average, five more problems than under conditions where cheating was not possible (i.e. controlled conditions).
The researchers then introduced David – a student who was tasked to raise his hand shortly after the experiment begun and proclaim that he had solved all the problems. Other participants were obviously shocked by such a statement. It was clearly impossible to solve all the problems in only a few minutes. The experimenter, however, didn’t question his integrity and suggested that David should shred the answer sheet and take all the money from the envelope.
Interestingly, other participants’ behaviour adapted as a result. They reported solving on average eight more problems than under controlled conditions.
Much like the broken windows theory mentioned in my previous blog, this demonstrates that unethical behaviour is contagious, as are acts of non-compliance. If employees in a company witness other people breaking security policies and not being punished, they are tempted to do the same. It becomes socially acceptable and normal. This is the root cause of poor security culture.
The good news is that the opposite holds true as well. That’s why security culture has to have strong senior management support. Leading by example is the key to changing the perception of security in the company: if employees see that the leadership team takes security seriously, they will follow.
So, security professionals should focus on how security is perceived. This point is outlined in three basic steps in the book The Social Animal, by David Brooks:[2]
He claims that, historically, people were mostly focused on the last two steps of this process. In the previous blog I argued that relying solely on willpower has a limited effect. Willpower can be exercised like a muscle, but it is also prone to atrophy.
In regard to the second step of the decision-making process, if people were reminded of the potential negative consequences they would be likely not to take the action. Brooks then refers to ineffective HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns, which focused only on the negative consequences and ultimately failed to change people’s behaviour.
He also suggests that most diets fail because willpower and reason are not strong enough to confront impulsive desires: “You can tell people not to eat the French fry. You can give them pamphlets about the risks of obesity … In their nonhungry state, most people will vow not to eat it. But when their hungry self rises, their well-intentioned self fades, and they eat the French fry”.
This doesn’t only apply to dieting: when people want to get their job done and security gets in the way, they will circumvent it, regardless of the degree of risk they might expose the company to.
That is the reason for perception being the cornerstone of the decision-making process. Employees have to be taught to see security violations in a particular way that minimises the temptation to break policies.
In ‘Strangers to Ourselves’, Timothy Wilson claims, “One of the most enduring lessons of social psychology is that behaviour change often precedes changes in attitudes and feelings”.[3]
Security professionals should understand that there is no single event that alters users’ behaviour – changing security culture requires regular reinforcement, creating and sustaining habits.
Charles Duhigg, in his book The Power of Habit,[4] tells a story about Paul O’Neill, a CEO of the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) who was determined to make his enterprise the safest in the country. At first, people were confused that the newly appointed executive was not talking about profit margins or other finance-related metrics. They didn’t see the link between his ‘zero-injuries’ goal and the company’s performance. Despite that, Alcoa’s profits reached a historical high within a year of his announcement. When O’Neill retired, the company’s annual income was five times greater than it had been before his arrival. Moreover, it became one of the safest companies in the world.
Duhigg explains this phenomenon by highlighting the importance of the “keystone habit”. Alcoa’s CEO identified safety as such a habit and focused solely on it.
O’Neill had a challenging goal to transform the company, but he couldn’t just tell people to change their behaviour. He said, “that’s not how the brain works. So I decided I was going to start by focusing on one thing. If I could start disrupting the habits around one thing, it would spread throughout the entire company.”
He recalled an incident when one of his workers died trying to fix a machine despite the safety procedures and warning signs. The CEO called an emergency meeting to understand what had caused this tragic event.
He took personal responsibility for the worker’s death, identifying numerous shortcomings in safety education. For example, the training programme didn’t highlight the fact that employees wouldn’t be blamed for machinery failure or the fact that they shouldn’t commence repair work before finding a manager.
As a result, the policies were updated and the employees were encouraged to suggest safety improvements. Workers, however, went a step further and started suggesting business improvements as well. Changing their behaviour around safety led to some innovative solutions, enhanced communication and increased profits for the company.
Security professionals should understand the importance of group dynamics and influences to build an effective security culture.
They should also remember that just as ‘broken windows’ encourage policy violations, changing one security habit can encourage better behaviour across the board.
References:
[1] Francesca Gino, Shahar Ayal and Dan Ariely, “Contagion and Differentiation in Unethical Behavior: The Effect of One Bad Apple on the Barrel”, Psychological Science, 20(3), 2009, 393–398.
[2] David Brooks, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, Random House, 2011.
[3] Timothy Wilson, Strangers to Ourselves, Harvard University Press, 2004, 212.
[4] Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do and How to Change, Random House, 2013.
To find out more about building a security culture, read Leron’s book, The Psychology of Information Security. Twitter: @le_rond
Cyber Security Leadership 