Building a Strong Security Culture

Creating a strong security culture within an organization is important for the success of security awareness training. This approach fosters an environment where every employee plays a vital role in defending against cyber threats, significantly enhancing overall security.

2024-01-24

Organizations must move beyond traditional security measures and focus on creating a security culture that empowers employees to 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.

A thriving security culture is characterized by an environment where each member of the organization is cognizant of the potential risks tied to their online activities. Armed with this awareness, they consistently make prudent choices to minimize these risks, embedding security considerations into their everyday operations. This behavior, in turn, sets a precedent that influences others, triggering a domino effect of security mindfulness throughout the organization. It's this iterative cycle of shared security awareness that solidifies a security culture, making it robust, resilient, and a formidable line of defense against cyber threats.

Why Security Culture Matters

A well-established security culture ensures that security is not just an IT responsibility but a collective effort involving all employees. It helps organizations:

Reduce security incidents caused by human error.
Strengthen compliance with regulatory standards.
Increase employee awareness and engagement in cybersecurity 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 security 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 behavioral gaps

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 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 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: 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. 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

Building a strong security culture is no longer a choice but a necessity for organizations aiming to mitigate human-related cyber risks effectively. By conducting a comprehensive assessment, defining clear objectives, customizing awareness programs, and promoting a proactive security mindset, businesses can successfully build, tailor, and implement a security culture that empowers employees and enhances 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, ensuring that employees become an integral part of the defense strategy.

Editor's Note: This blog was updated on January 22, 2025.