Re-thinking The Human Factor with Bruce Hallas Marmalade Box

If you’re a regular listener then you will have already met today’s guest Dr. Char Sample. Char is a force at work deep within the information security community. Char is a rarity, combining a deep knowledge of both the technical and human aspects of the challenges security professionals face when managing cyber security risks.
Char and I go back a long way, to a horrible conference lunch in London, where her riveting conversation meant I didn’t have to eat what was on the plate in front of me. I have been forever grateful. That riveting conversation was all about our shared understanding of how culture influences everyone’s day to day behaviours and how everyday behaviours make up culture. That shared interest has led to many conversations and shared ideas about how the information security industry could step up a level by seeing the potential for improving how we assess and manage human factor risks.
In this episode we capture one of those conversations. We talk about heuristics and biases, what they are and what role they might have in artificial intelligence. Why what makes us human often makes us behave in seemingly irrational ways even when presented with all the data we need  and assumptions we frequently make when developing and designing systems and processes and how this is undermining the management of business risks.
Be warned, there's a lot of laughter in this episode.

In this episode we are joined by a guest who has committed their career to the world of advertising agency work. Influencing target audiences awareness of products and stacking the odds in their clients favour, that the target audience will choose their product over their competitors. The challanges our guest has faced, over the years, are in many ways similar to those that education and awareness managers, for information security and data protection, now face.

The role of the human resources function, in the the overall process of employee awareness, behavioru and culture can't be under stated.
In the early days of my research, at Re-thinking the Human Factor, it was very apparent that HR was a major stakeholder. From what I like to call KPI's clash, where stakeholders KPI's sometimes clash against each other, through to employee performance and development, and from HR processes such as starters, movers and leavers, through to organisational change. The HR department can add a lot of value to the process of delivering change in employee security awareness, behaviour and culture if you work on fostering a beneficial releationship. 
With that in mind I wanted to invite a guest who excels in the area of organisational development, epople management and HR. Our guest, Anne Benedict, stepped right up and agreed to share some insights into the challange of employee awareness and education, from a HR perspective.

When I first got involved in “information security” 20+ years ago, I found myself almost entirely surrounded by industry peers whose training and experience was in technology or technology disciplines. My training in law, marketing and finance, and my experience in business development, marketing, recruitment and even a stint in purchasing and supplies all seemed out of line with the world of IT security as it was called back then.
As I came to understand, during my own research in human behaviour and culture, my lack of an education in technology meant I was culturally and even physically wired differently. This meant I looked at things through a different set of lenses. The result, was an approach that we would now call governance, risk and compliance. However, it was these very human disciplines, which led me to fundamentally think differently when it came to kicking off the Re-thinking the Human Factor research programme.
Our guest Lana McGill, to me, enshrines the change in direction of an increasing number of forward thinking security professionals looking for a more mature approach to employee awareness, behaviour and culture. Lana believes that by diversifying their search for skills and experience, outside of the traditional industry expectations, you can bring new insights and energy to the challenge of influencing  employee behaviour and culture. Her role as a senior information security leader, in the finance sector, and her willingness to embrace other skills and experiences in the search for more effective interventions, gives hope that the industry inertia, when it comes to the human factor, may finally be shifting.
 
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Finding relevent metrics, for security awareness, behaviour and culture has been a long standing  challenge which the information security industry has struggled hard to address.
Now, when I reflect on how I personally tackled metrics, around the human factor, before I kicked off my research programme here at Re-thinking the Human Factor, I recognise I had an in-mature approach. That approach focused on what data I knew I could get rather than what was useful. Some industry folks called this "vanity metrics." That's all changed now, and that change started off, with getting back to basics by looking at what the science of measurement had to say.
In this episode our guest and I talk about the sceince of measurement, how it is has evolved to enable human kind to progress at every stage of human evolution and how this knowledge might shine a light on the challenge of finding effective metrics when it comes to employee awareness, behaviour and culture.
If you want to know more about how we have used this and other insights into metrics to support information security professionals measure the effectiveness of their programmes to influence security awareness, behaviour and culture then visit www.re-thinkingthehumanfactor.com and register for the monthly webinar. 
 

Educating employees on their roles and responsilities when it comes to information security and data protection, is common sense, and, even if you don't think that's the case, it is, without a doubt, a regulatory obligation for many. So, what is "education" and what is going on in the world of learning and development which might help us to re-think the human factor?
In this episode our guest, Teisa Marshik, a respected educational psychologist and passionate educator, shares how her's and her colleagues approach to educating learners is changing. We cover everything from how the effectiveness and success of education is measured, through to how advances in our understanding of human behaviour and culture, mean we now recognise that students are consuming and responding to education content based on their own life experiences and situations and what this means for traditional best practices in L&D.