How to Build a Cyber Culture in Your Company?

With the constant advances of technology, organizations have been changing the way their employees and operations work on a day-to-day basis. More than ever, the shift from an onsite-working scheme to a completely remote or hybrid model has increased the challenges faced in the cybersecurity landscape as identity recognition has become difficult and the number of devices being used outside the organizational perimeter has expanded its attack surface (TechTarget, 2022).

Building a cybersecurity culture means creating consciousness around the importance of maintaining security behaviors and attitudes, making it possible for your entire organization to prepare for an eventual attack, respond in a timely matter, and rapidly recover, in case such attack materializes.

Creating a cybersecurity culture makes it clear to all departments of your organization that everyone should be actively involved in keeping their digital assets safe from malicious actors by understanding their responsibility in cybersecurity and the role they must assume in the three lines of defense. Moreover, it means employees know and understand the risks involving cybersecurity, and how to respond or report possible attacks.  

To create such consciousness and strengthen this cultural change, organizations have been increasing the amount of budget they assign to the purchase of cybersecurity technologies and training, seeking to have an impact on their employees and stakeholders’ values, attitudes, and beliefs about this matter (MIT Management,2022). However, increasing the financial budget on this sort of expenses won’t matter if the organization is not completely committed to changing the current mindset in which most believe cybersecurity is just a matter faced by the TI and Security teams.

To ensure your organization’s cybersecurity culture does nurture and stays in your stakeholders’ top of mind, make sure to have in mind the following tips (MIT Management, 2022) (CyberManagement Alliance, 2022):

· Having an entire C-Level managerial team committed to leading and fomenting this new culture through the entire organization. These managers should make sure they align their business strategy to the current and emerging cyber risks, and constantly make them known to the rest of the organization.

· Have a CISO or head of cybersecurity compromised with leading and building this new cybersecurity mentality among employees and stakeholders.

· Make your cybersecurity culture “human-centric”. This means implementing training programs for your entire staff, organizational leaders, board members, and even for your clients. Try to make these trainings fun and rewarding, to engage each of your stakeholders with their lessons.

· Use an easy-to-understand language: all areas of the organization should be involved in the cybersecurity training. Since not all of them are aware of the techy concepts, try using common words and different communication channels (such as videos, blogs, emails, events, etc.) to make your message easy to understand and digest.

· Conduct ‘fire drills’ in which your entire organization has the chance to experiment a cyberattack. This activity will enable each individual to assume the role they have been assigned in cybersecurity (depending on their line of defense), and prepare them for when an actual attack does take place.

Sources:

https://www.cm-alliance.com/cybersecurity-blog/how-to-create-a-culture-of-cybersecurity-in-your-organisation

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/how-to-build-a-culture-cybersecurity

https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/tip/5-tips-for-building-a-cybersecurity-culture-at-your-company

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