Christina Lekati, Senior Social Engineering Trainer & Consultant at Cyber Risk GmbH

Improving Cybersecurity Culture Through Behavioral Science
What does it take from a cybersecurity professional to be heard in their organization and spread their message about the importance of cybersecurity to both the leadership and the other employees? And if that wasn’t already hard enough, what does it take to lead behavior change and build a cybersecurity culture? It has become clear that technical cybersecurity measures need to operate in harmony with, and be applied by people. Today’s workforce needs to practice good cyber security habits to protect the assets they handle, and their organization.

If only it was that easy. Convenience, productivity requirements and other organizational realities are often competing in people’s minds, making them conclude that cybersecurity is simply an “inconvenience” that they soon decide to ignore. On the other hand, security professionals, who were originally focused on securing technology alone, are now tasked with a vastly different requirement: to lead behavioral change within their organization.

This presentation discusses the psychological elements & behavioral science involved in shifting the leadership’s and the users’ perspectives towards cybersecurity and in driving behavioral change. It will discuss the elements that drive motivation, people’s perception of risk & reward, the psychology of wilful compliance, and more. Ultimately, this topic aims to help security managers & executives to communicate cybersecurity matters more effectively & implement the necessary security requirements that employees need to practice within their organization.