Why executives are key to the success of your security awareness training
If execs don’t take security awareness training, then it just isn’t important to them. That’s how employees feel, whether training is mandatory or not.
The behavior modelled by executives is one of the most important drivers of corporate culture. If top executives aren’t completing the training in a timely manner (ideally, before everyone else), then it will be hard to engage staff.
Here’s a “truth table” I created for executive words and actions related to security awareness:
1. Top execs say training is important, and they complete it
2. Top execs don’t say training is important, but they complete it
3. Top execs say training is important, but they don’t complete it
4. Top execs don’t say training is important, and they don’t complete it
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Think about which category your executive team is in. If yours is not in category #1, think about what is needed to get them there.
For categories #2 and #3, they will have excuses to justify why their words and actions aren’t aligned. Find out what the barriers are, and find allies to proposed solutions.
For category #4, there’s a lot of work to be done; you’re living on borrowed time, and execs may be the biggest target. Use stories, data and questions to get them to category #2 or #3, and then to category #1.
If execs don’t put a priority on doing the training themselves, not many others will.
Scott Wright is CEO of Click Armor, the gamified simulation platform that helps businesses avoid breaches by engaging employees to improve their proficiency in making decisions for cyber security risk and corporate compliance. He has over 20 years of cyber security coaching experience and was creator of the Honey Stick Project for Smartphones as a demonstration in measuring human vulnerabilities.