A strong security culture within your organisation is necessary to combat the overwhelming number of cyber security breaches that are attributed to human error. A strong security culture empowers employees to practise good IT security habits and makes a security incident less likely. 

A strong cyber security culture isn’t something you have, it’s something you repeatedly do. Simply developing policies that no one reads or running one-off initiatives won’t suffice as effective solutions on their own. 

Ongoing security awareness training and frequent communication across all aspects of your business can shape security culture as a key component of your overall cyber security strategy. This will deliver confidence in data protection practices throughout your operations.

Here are 5 things you can do to strengthen your security culture: 

1. Keep IT security expectations and requirements simple: one way to do this is to write short IT security policies in plain language so all employees can understand what is expected of them. The policies should be explained during employee onboarding and ensure mandatory participation in security awareness training.
    
2. Have a clear reporting process in place: to ensure employees can easily follow when they need to contact the IT department. Everybody should know who to go to if they have questions about a security issue, and how to report a suspected security risk or breach. 
3. Start from the top: Executives should undertake security awareness training so they can lead by example in their commitment towards a cyber-safe working culture. This encourages everyone else within the organisation to take security seriously too. 
4. All employees should understand cyber security is everybody’s responsibility and not just IT. Employees often think ‘it won’t happen to me, so why bother?’. Training your team to assess security risks within the context of their role makes it more relevant to them. Phishing training through simulated emails is a better way to demonstrate their risk than reading pages and pages of security protocols in a manual. When employees can visualise how they would respond to an authentic-looking phish email, this serves as a stark reminder of the importance of their role in protecting the organisation. 
5. Integrate security into the regular workday: office decorations promoting cyber security awareness can keep the importance of information protection top-of-mind. Short and regular training also helps reinforce regular knowledge checks among staff – making sure it doesn’t become an added burden on their time is key!

All businesses must take proactive steps to establish a secure environment and culture.

Download our ebook for details on how to protect your business from cyber attack in 2023. This free information can provide an essential checklist to ensure your team has all necessary cyber security essentials covered and can build a resilient cyber security culture.