Employees, not the security system, operating system, or even its patch maintenance, contribute far more to the spread of malware and ransomware.
It seems that no matter how much you drum into them not to open suspicious email attachments from people they don’t know, nor how many times they do risky surfing at work – industry figures generally agree that 30% of phishing emails are opened (up from 22% the previous year) and at least half of those click through to open the poisoned attachment, website or link.
Phishing was up 250% year-on-year at the end of 2016. Cloudmark research indicated that the average cost of a successful spear phishing attack resulting in a data breach or exfiltrated data was US$1.6 million per company and 84% of US companies had a spear phishing attack get past their organisations security.
Sean Duca, vice president, and regional chief security officer, Asia Pacific, Palo Alto Networks said “Successful attacks often involve poor processes and exploit human tendencies. To reduce an organisation’s threat surface, the focus of regular employee training needs to shift from reaction to prevention. Companies need to put themselves ahead of emerging threats.”
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Duca says that pure compliance-driven approaches – “You must do this” - have proven to be ineffective for organisations when used for employee security training, usually because it’s not interesting or personal enough to capture employees’ imaginations. Businesses should focus on educating employees on how to protect their personal data, therefore encouraging employees to enact further security-orientated practices in the workplace.”
Employee training may take different forms, including the increasing practice of gamifying cybersecurity education programs. Gamification is the process of using gaming mechanics in a non-gaming context, leveraging what is exciting about games and applying it to other types of activities that may not be so fun. Designed with elements of competition and rewards, gamification programs are becoming popular because they can be used in a variety of industries.
Many businesses currently use gamification in areas such as customer engagement, and employee education and training to drive performance and motivation. Gaming elements include one-on-one competitions, rewards programs, and more.
There are two key ways businesses can use gamification as a way of addressing cyber security in their organisation:
1. Make training more exciting and engaging for employees
Using gamification can help businesses improve their cybersecurity in numerous ways, including showing employees how to avoid cyber attacks and learning about vulnerabilities in software.
Global consulting firm, PwC, teaches cyber security through its game, Game of Threats. Executives compete against each other in real-world cyber security situations, playing as either attackers or defenders. Attackers choose the tactics, methods, and skills of attack, while defenders develop defence strategies, needing to choose to invest in the right technologies and talent to respond to the attack. The game gives executives an understanding of how to prepare and react to threats, how well prepared the company is, and what their cyber security teams face each day.
Duca said, “Gamifying will help make the training process more exciting and engaging for employees, increasing employee awareness of cyber security practices, including how to deal with attacks correctly.”
2. Offer incentives and rewards to encourage desired behaviours
Human error is responsible for most security breaches, with employees feeling pressured to complete work by certain deadlines and as quickly as possible, which can result in them overlooking important company policy regarding security.
For example, running so-called PhishMe campaigns can be a great way to train employees on better email security. These include regular phishing emails sent across the organisation, testing staff’s response and action.
Duca said “Gamification lets businesses reward those employees who follow security procedures and adhere to the correct security guidelines, which will further promote good behaviour. This may take the form of employees receiving a badge or recording points, which are then displayed on a scoreboard for the office to follow. In some organisations, after employees reach specific milestones, they are presented with material rewards such as a gift voucher.
“This system also allows for the identification of those who display poor behaviour within gamification and may result in the employee needing to complete further cyber security training. Recognising and rewarding employees when they do the correct thing leads to continued positive behaviour, motivating employees to undertake safe practices and resulting in a more cyber secure working environment.,” he added.