Security departments have traditionally been perceived as “The Department of No”; that is the starting point and title for a report by a security awareness training and simulated phishing platform.
This report, authored by Javvad Malik, security awareness advocate at KnowBe4, covers how many in security teams a reputational challenge within their organisations. Because they are responsible for the well-being of the organisation at large, they often receive unwarranted backlash from other departments that grow discouraged by the constant precautions that can shut down business operations that pose security concerns, he suggests. The “Department of No” report provides key insights into how to set up a positive, effective and generally successful security team.
Malik says: “I wanted to look further into why security departments are often perceived as barriers to business rather than vital partners. This report walks through the habits of successful security teams and the secret sauce that makes them work. The methodologies they’ve deployed could work for your organisation as well and transform employees’ entire perception of security.”
He includes analysis of data from a soon to be released CLTRe (a KnowBe4 company) survey that provides information about security culture across 20 countries. The 2020 survey collected data from 120,050 employees working across 1107 organisations, seeking to understand employee relationships with IT departments.
The report sums up that security teams are burdened with an unenviable task of ensuring compliance while remaining accessible, and maybe even popular. “To do this, it might help to look at various behavioural tools that can help. And ultimately, that leads into a discipline that appears at odds with the highly-technical infosec world — marketing, and more specifically, internal marketing. The most effective internal marketing campaigns have typically started with a “shock.” Sometimes, this is as grand as a wholesale rebranding, or a change in leadership. But sometimes, it can be as simple as the decision to change.”
To download “The Department of No” 12-page report, visit https://www.knowbe4.com/hubfs/The-Department-of-No-UK.pdf.
