Human Risk Management: A Silver Bullet for Effective Security Awareness Training

  • By Stu Sjouwerman
  • Jan 24, 2025

You would think in a world where cybersecurity breaches are frequently in the news, that it wouldn’t require much to convince CEOs and C-suite leaders of the value and importance of security awareness training (SAT). Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.

Whenever there’s cost associated with an initiative—and SAT requires both employee time and out-of-pocket costs—organizational leaders need to clearly understand the business case.

Fortunately, that can readily be done with security awareness training.

Are You Willing to Roll the Dice?
One foundational question for senior leaders: “Are you willing to roll the dice when it comes to security awareness training?” In other words, “Are you willing to risk a breach and the costs associated with data security, personal data of employees and customers, brand impact, etc.?” Chances are, they’re not. But chances are, they’re also focused on technological solutions to security breaches—encryption, secure web gateways (SWGs), zero-trust network access (ZTNA), intrusion detection and response (IDR), cloud and IoT security, et.al.

And while all of these efforts are essential, they’re not enough. There’s another aspect of security that must be continuously addressed—the human element.

We refer to that as human risk management.

Human Risk Management
The human element of data security is significant. Verizon’s annual data breach report tells us that human risk represents 68 percent of all data breaches. While that’s down from the previous year’s rate of 74, it’s still a significant proportion of overall risk. What this means is that 68 percent of the cases reported in 2024 were related to end users—accidental actions, the use of stolen credentials, social engineering, and even privileged misuse or inappropriate actions by those with access to IT systems. All of these roll up into a big carpet of risk that must be managed well and managed continually as part of an overall security culture.

Cybercriminals are gunning after end users because they know that humans represent the weakest link to data and network security. What we need to do is increase the readiness of employees so they can defend, thwart and report security breaches.

There’s something important in it for them as well: 100 percent of what organizations teach employees about security awareness is translatable to their own personal lives. Their personal data is also at risk.

What are cybercriminals looking for? They’re looking for people, in both work and home settings, who don’t have the knowledge to protect systems and data, are too apathetic to do so, or too distracted. Threat actors know too well how human nature, with its inclination to impatience and impulsivity, present easy targets that can be exploited to their advantage.

Effective human risk management can help minimize these risks through three types of intervention.

Three Steps Toward Effective Human Risk Management
Many companies fail, or fail to succeed, at human risk management because their efforts are static rather than dynamic processes. Establishing and sustaining a strong security culture requires ongoing efforts that are scalable, repeatable, and measurable. By analyzing the data collected through our annual Phishing by Industry Benchmark report we’ve been able to directly tie a reduction in security breaches to three important activities:

1) Training delivered in small bites. For example, if you want to do 30 minutes of training around passwords in a particular month, rather than delivering that content all at once, you could break it down into weekly or twice monthly installments using short videos, small interactive engagements, and games. That helps to keep security top of mind. You’re increasing the frequency, but decreasing the time spent on training.

2) Phishing simulations. We recommend that phishing simulations be done once a month, at a minimum. You need to provide enough instances to allow you to measure whether employees are experiencing challenges with certain types of templates. And you need to give them the opportunity to practice what they’re learning.

3) Communication. You need to leverage different communication media across your company—webinars, blogs, posters, in-person meetings or group discussions, newsletters, etc. And you want to leverage different departments and individuals, including C-level leaders, to help get those messages out. Start by looking for “water cooler” places where employees tend to gather—either physically or online. Then make sure you’re placing your messages there.

Do each of these things well and our research illustrates that you could, for instance, reduce the chances of someone clicking on a phishing email from 34% to 4.6% over a year. That’s significant. And that’s the kind of results that can help build that business case for an investment in security awareness.

Beyond firewalls, beyond encryption, beyond all tech-related security efforts, making an investment in human risk management will pay off in meaningful and measurable ways.

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