Tag Archives: Security Culture

Inclusion and accessibility: shaping culture and driving business outcomes

I’m grateful to have had an opportunity to continue to learn and contribute to the important discussion on building the culture of diversity, inclusion and accessibility in cyber security.

I like being on panels like this because it gives me an opportunity to share my views and continue to educate myself not only through research but also though lived experiences.

I believe shaping the inclusive culture begins with creating awareness about the barriers to diversity and inclusion. Accessibility is an important consideration. Testing new systems and processes with people with accessibility needs is key to discovering where issues may exist.

The best way to make security more accessible is to engage with the people who interact with it. Treating usability and accessibility together with other security requirements rather than a separate item is useful to ensure it gets built-in from the start.

Trust in People: Macquarie University Cyber Security Industry Workshop

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.

Ethical cyber security leadership

Picture an easy Sunday morning. It’s sunny and quiet with only birds chirping outside. You make yourself a cup of coffee and sit on the sofa to catch-up on what’s happening in the world. You open your favourite news site and here it is – first story of the day in large font.

Breaking news: massive data breach! It’s your company in the headline.

This is the modern reality, cyber attacks are becoming increasingly common and it’s no longer a matter of if but when.

How do you manage this PR nightmare? What do you tell the media? Can you regain the trust of your customers and partners?

These are not the questions you want to be thinking about in the middle of a crisis. The real story begins way before that. It starts with responsible data management practices and securing people’s information.

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Collaborating with the Optus Macquarie University Cyber Security Hub

I recently had a chance to collaborate with researchers at The Optus Macquarie University Cyber Security Hub. Their interdisciplinary approach brings industry practitioners and academics from a variety of backgrounds to tackle the most pressing cyber security challenges our society and businesses face today.

Both academia and industry practitioners can and should learn from each other. The industry can guide problem definition and allow access to data, but also learn to apply the scientific method and test their hypotheses. We often assume the solutions we implement lead to risk reduction but how this is measured is not always clear. Designing experiments and using research techniques can help bring the necessary rigour when delivering and assessing outcomes.

I had an opportunity to work on some exciting projects to help build an AI-powered cyber resilience simulator, phone scam detection capability and investigate the role of human psychology to improve authentication protocols. I deepened my understanding of modern machine learning techniques like topic extraction and emotion analysis and how they can be applied to solve real world problems. I also had a privilege to contribute to a research publication to present our findings, so watch this space for some updates next year.

The complexity of communication

As someone who worked for both large multinationals and small tech startups, I’m often asked whether the scale of the organisation matters when building security culture.

I think it does. Managing stakeholders and communication gets increasingly complex in larger organisations. In fact, the number of communication paths tends to increase dramatically with every new stakeholder introduced to the network.

I’ve had the privilege to advise a number of smaller companies in the beginning of their journey and I must admit it’s much more effective to embed secure behaviours from the start. We talk about security by design in the context of technical controls – it’s no different with security culture.

While working as a consultant, I helped large corporations with that challenge too. The key is to start small and focus on the behaviours you want to influence, keeping stakeholder engagement in mind. Active listening, empathy and rapport building are essential – just rolling out an eLearning module is unlikely to be effective.

Book signing

I’ve been asked to sign a large order of my book The Psychology of Information Security and hope that people who receive a copy will appreciate the personal touch!

I wrote this book to help security professionals and people who are interested in a career in cyber security to do their job better. Not only do we need to help manage cyber security risks, but also communicate effectively in order to be successful. To achieve this, I suggest starting by understanding the wider organisational context of what we are protecting and why.

Communicating often and across functions is essential when developing and implementing a security programme to mitigate identified risks. In the book, I discuss how to engage with colleagues to factor in their experiences and insights to shape security mechanisms around their daily roles and responsibilities. I also recommend orienting security education activities towards the goals and values of individual team members, as well as the values of the organisation.

I also warn against imposing too much security on the business. At the end of the day, the company needs to achieve its business objectives and innovate, albeit securely. The aim should be to educate people about security risks and help colleagues make the right decisions, showing that security is not only important to keep the company afloat or meet a compliance requirement but that it can also be a business enabler. This helps demonstrate to the Board that security contributes to the overall success of the organisation by elevating trust and amplifying the brand message, which in turn leads to happier customers.

Free security awareness training for your staff

NCSC Stay Safe Online

Who needs to buy e-learning modules for employee security awareness programmes when NCSC kindly made available their training for free?

NCSC’s Top Tips For Staff includes online videos (that can be also included in your own learning management system), knowledge check and an infographic.

It’s a quick and easy way to get you started on the journey of building security culture in your company and meet some of the compliance requirements. This can be especially helpful for startups and non-profits with limited budgets.