Building a Strong Security Culture

Creating a strong security culture within an organization is important for the success of security awareness training. This approach creates a space where every employee helps protect against cyber threats. This greatly improves overall security.

2024-01-24

Organizations need to go beyond traditional security methods. They should create a security culture that helps employees act as the first line of defense. A strong security culture helps mitigate risks, reduce incidents, and align security behaviors with business objectives. This blog explores how to build, tailor, and implement a security culture effectively.

What is Security Culture?

Security culture is the collection of perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors related to cybersecurity within a business environment. It represents all employees' collective commitment to safeguarding the organization's assets and sets the tone for the entire organization.

A strong security culture exists when everyone in the organization knows the risks of their online activities. With this awareness, they make smart choices to reduce risks and ensure that security is integrated into their daily operations. They actively participate in security initiatives that strengthen the organization's defenses.

This behavior sets an example that affects others. It starts a chain reaction of security awareness in the organization, helping employees recognize and address security issues proactively. This ongoing cycle of shared security awareness builds a strong security culture, making it resilient and a strong defense against cyber threats.

Why Security Culture Matters

A robust security culture makes sure that security is not only an IT job. It is a team effort that includes all employees. It helps organizations:

Reduce security incidents caused by human error.
Strengthen compliance with regulatory standards.
Increase employee awareness and engagement in information security efforts.
Foster a proactive approach to threat detection and response.

Steps to Build Security Culture

Building a strong security culture requires a strategic and ongoing effort that aligns with organizational goals and employee behaviors. By fostering a culture where security is valued at every level, businesses can reduce risks and enhance overall resilience. The following steps outline a structured approach to developing an effective security culture within your organization.

1. Conduct a Current State Assessment

Before implementing any initiatives, it's crucial to assess the current cybersecurity culture within your organization. Key areas to evaluate include:

Incident Trends: Analyze security incidents based on tenure, business units, and access levels.
Training Completion Rates: Measure the effectiveness of current security awareness programs.
Threat Simulation Performance: Evaluate past phishing or social engineering tests to identify risky behaviors.

2. Set Clear Metrics and Goals

Establishing measurable goals is vital to track progress and demonstrate value to leadership. Key performance indicators (KPIs) to consider include:

Phishing Simulation Targets: Aim for a 40% reporting rate and less than 5% click-through rate.
Training Completion: Set ambitious targets (e.g., 85% mandatory training completion).
Incident Remediation: Focus on reducing the average remediation cost and blast radius of security breaches.

Picture 1: A Sample graphics displaying the target for a 40% reporting rate and less than 5% click-through rate

These metrics help align the security culture program with business objectives and ensure continuous improvement.

3. Gain Executive Buy-in

Building a security culture requires leadership support to set the "tone at the top." Engage executives by presenting a compelling value story, emphasizing how a security-conscious workforce and a strong company culture can prevent costly breaches and maintain business continuity.

Picture 2: Value story - importance of leadership support

4. Implement Adaptive Security Awareness Training Programs

One-size-fits-all approaches don't work when it comes to security awareness. Organizations should tailor security culture programs and security protocols based on:

Job Roles: Developers, HR personnel, and customer support require different security guidelines.
Risk Levels: High-risk departments may need additional, targeted training.
Learning Preferences: Provide a mix of video-based learning, live sessions, and interactive content to cater to diverse learning styles.

Picture 3: Highlighting training targets and completion rates.

5. Foster Engagement Through Ambassadors

Security ambassadors or champions play a pivotal role in reinforcing security behaviors across teams. Encourage departments to nominate ambassadors who will:

Act as a bridge between security teams and employees.
Provide peer support and answer security-related queries.
Organize security awareness events, such as Cybersecurity Awareness Month initiatives

Metric	What is Measured?
Number of ambassadors	Number of active ambassadors promoting the security awareness program.
Ambassadors channel	Number of posts (i.e., threads) on ambassadors’ channel.
Ambassadors meeting attendance	Number of ambassadors who attend monthly meetings.
Ambassadors training	% of champions who completed training (e.g., Bronze, Silver, and Gold levels).
Ambassadors phishing simulation susceptibility rate	Number of people who fall victim to a phishing simulation. The definition of falling victim is clicking on the link or opening an attachment.
Ambassadors phishing simulation reporting	Number of people who detect and report a phishing simulation.
Success stories	Real-world stories on how workforce identified and/or stopped a real attack.
Ambassadors' attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors	Ambassadors' attitudes, beliefs, and certain behaviors as captured from focus groups.

Table 1: Ambassador Program Metrics

6. Encourage a Positive Security Mindset

Building a strong security culture isn't just about compliance; it’s about creating a positive mindset around security. This includes:

Rewarding Secure Behaviors: Recognize employees who report phishing emails or demonstrate exemplary security practices.
Continuous Communication Channels: Keep security top of mind through newsletters, posters, and short security tips during meetings.

Fostering Accountability: Encourage employees to take ownership of their role in protecting company assets.

Picture 4: Reward secure behaviors and fostering continuous communication.

7. Leverage Data-Driven Insights

Regularly review security culture metrics and adjust programs based on the findings, ensuring the protection of sensitive data and minimizing the risk of data breaches. Use dashboards to provide visibility into key areas such as:

Trends in security incidents.
Employee engagement levels.
Compliance with training and awareness programs

Metric Category	Description
Impact Metrics – Behaviors	These metrics measure the impact of our security education training. Specifically, is the security education program changing people's behaviors?
Impact Metrics – Culture	These metrics evaluate changes in the organization’s overall mindset and attitudes towards security. Specifically, are they changing people's attitudes, beliefs, and norms concerning security?
Impact Metrics – Strategic Alignment	These metrics measure how well the security education supports the company’s main security goals and, ultimately, the mission of our organization. These are the types of metrics senior leadership are more likely to be interested in.
Compliance Metrics	These metrics measure what our awareness program is doing, specifically who you are training and how. These metrics are most valuable for compliance and auditing purposes.
Ambassador Program Metrics	These metrics measure the activity and impact of a security ambassador program.

Table 2: Security Culture Metrics

8. Implement Continuous Improvement Practices

Security culture is an ongoing process that requires regular assessment and updates. Schedule periodic culture surveys and focus group sessions to gather feedback and refine initiatives accordingly.

Create Security Culture with Keepnet

Creating a strong security culture is now a must for organizations. This helps reduce risks from human errors in cyber security. By doing a thorough risk assessment, setting clear goals, and creating awareness programs, businesses can build a strong security culture. This culture empowers employees and improves overall cyber resilience.

Keepnet’s Human Risk Management Platform provides the essential tools to make this transformation seamless. With tailored Security Awareness Training programs and advanced Phishing Simulator solutions, Keepnet helps organizations cultivate a security-first culture. These tools ensure that employees play a key role in the defense strategy.

Editor's Note: We updated this article on March 10th, 2025.