Cyber Defense eMagazine December Edition for 2021

Building a Cybersecurity Culture from The Ground Up
These attacks are evolving and growing more sophisticated every day. Having a strong cybersecurity
culture is more important than ever to ensure employees can work both securely and productively. Rather
than getting in their way, an effective cybersecurity culture images employees as part of the solution while
providing the tools they need to stay secure.
This involves a layered approach, starting with creating a transparent, shame-free environment that
encourages employees to admit to mistakes or share when something feels off. Unless employees feel
comfortable flagging, suspicious emails or alerting IT when they’ve clicked a malicious link, security
teams won’t know how or when they are being targeted. Essentially, they’ll have zero visibility into these
threats.
The next step is relevant, ongoing training. Employees should be trained using the latest and most
relevant examples, such as real-world phishing emails. For example, they should see real examples of
those “too good to be true” scams before the holiday season and should know to look out for spear
phishing emails late in the afternoon. Automation and machine learning tools can also be used to provide
in-the-moment training tailored to specific employees based on their role, tenure and location.
But even with training, people will make mistakes like clicking a malicious link or sharing login credentials.
Businesses need to take an advanced approach to email security to stop the threats that do get through.
Relying on employees to identify and outwit threats 100% of the time will leave an organization
vulnerable. The right security tools can provide an added layer of defense and support employees without
disrupting their workflow.
About the Author
Josh Yavor is CISO at Tessian, leading information security,
threat intelligence, and security research. Most recently he
served as CISO for Cisco Secure and led cloud security for
Duo Security, with earlier stops at Facebook, Oculus, and iSEC
Partners. Josh is an aspiring woodworker and recovering
middle school teacher. Learn more about Josh on Twitter and
at Tessian.com.
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