In the past cyber security groups within organizations have often been portrayed as the dark t-shirt wearing, cranky geeks that no one wanted a call from. This stereo type has gotten better but there is always room for growth.
The idea of Defense in Depth has been around for a long time and has changed as technologies and strategies have evolved, but the one method that is often neglected or may not even exist within an organization is user engagement. But wait, every October our security team sends out a boring drab email telling us we need to complete our Cyber Security Awareness training, isn't that enough? Training definitely checks the box for compliance in many situations but it really doesn't promote engagement with employees or contribute to a security culture within an organization.
So how can we become the Kylie Jenner of security within our department? Well first you need to take some plays from the social media influncer's playbook.
Create content
- Create topical content, take advantage of high visibility security events that happen in the news.
- Be transparent to a point with your coworkers to share what your team is doing to protect them.
- Make the content engaging and fun, It doesn't need to be a dissertation filled with technical jargon, make it approachable and something coworkers will want to share and talk about.
Gain a following across social media platforms
- Create a public channel on your internal collaboration tools like MS Teams or Slack. This is where you can post updates or snippets of what the team is working on.
- Post on your internal home page have a regular section on the main homepage where you can post small articles or links to longer blog posts about things going on in the department.
Schedule content
Be consistent and frequent the more you post and communicate across all the channels, email, internal chat, internal blog, etc. The more interest you will create.Brainstorm possible content
Engage other teams like the sys admins, developers, even interested coworkers and even your internal social media teams. Diversity will also help with engagement and the skills of the other teams will enhance your ability to connect with your coworkers.Analyze feedback and platform analytics
During yearly or quarterly security awareness training include a poll about how effective the security team's communication has been.Engage with followers to build a community
- Through posting regularly on the internal channels you can keep engagement and interests active.
- More personal engagement like light and fun security exercises with staff can build a culture. These can be easy as a role based exercise at lunch and learn.
- The secret is to not make this mandatory, inspire the staff that are interested in security this is what will go viral. If your interactions are super positive and productive, those co-workers will talk to their peers and you can make security awareness go viral.
Attend events and guest spots
- Get out there. Put a face to the dark scary security team. Shine a light on the security team, show them that you all are approachable and not just the team that says no all the time.
- Being approachable is important when a client clicks on something that may be bad; you don't want them to be scared to report the issue.
Becoming a security influencer in your company will stimulate the security culture benefiting everyone. Through regular engagement with your coworkers you can stimulate conversation within the department about security and through conversation awareness will be the bi product. Having an open door policy and creating an environment where anyone feels comfortable to ask questions or report issues will help build the culture.
Though building the security awareness of everyone you work there is the potential this positive impact will spill outside of your company. When you coworkers go home and speak with their families and their friends your impact can have even a bigger impact than you know. You are through communication creating a positive impact that can spread even further than you can imagine .
So embrace your inner social media influencer and harness it for good.