Fighting Cyber Threats While Taking Human Behavior Into Consideration

In today’s corporations, information security managers have a lot on their plate. While facing major and constantly evolving cyber threats, they must comply with numerous laws and regulations, protect the company’s assets and mitigate risks as best as possible. To address this, they have to formulate policies to establish desired practices that avoid these dangers. They must then communicate this wanted behavior to the employees, so that they adapt and everything can go according to plan. But is this always the case? Security managers often find that what they put on paper is only half of the story. Getting the corporation to “cooperate” and follow the policy all the time can be far more challenging than it seems. So, why do employees seem to be so reluctant? Are we even asking the right question here? The correct question is: do security managers know what imposing new rules means to the average employee within the company? People’s behavior is goal-driven. If processes are imposed on them, people will usually follow them, as long as they still allow them to achieve their goals. If they come across situations where they are under pressure, or they encounter obstacles, people will cut corners, break rules and violate policies. So, why should the behavior of a corporation’s employees be an exception? They will usually follow the rules willingly while trying to comply with the security policy, but at the end of the day, their objective is simply to get their work done. Yes—there are cases of employees who have a malicious goal of intentionally violating security policies, but research shows that policy violations will most likely result from the controls implementation that prevented people from performing their tasks. What happens to an organization when honest workers can’t achieve their goals because of poorly implemented security controls? What happens on the security manager’s end and on the employees’ end that leads to this scenario? A short survey I performed in 2013 shows that there is a huge gap between the employees' and the security managers’ perceptions of security policies; and it’s this discrepancy that negatively impacts the organization as a whole. Security managers, on their side, assume that they have made all the relevant considerations pertaining the needs of the employees. However, the fact is that they rarely speak directly to the employees to familiarize themselves with their tasks, their needs, and their goals. It is therefore usual to hear employees complain about how security controls hinder or impede their performance. Let’s consider the following scenario:

In an investment bank, a security manager comes up with a policy document outlining a list of authorized software, which can be installed on computers, according to the principle of least privilege: people can only have the access they require to perform their day-to-day activities and no more. All employees are denied access to install any new software without written permission from the security manager. John is writing a report for the client. The deadline is fast-approaching but he still has a lot of work ahead of him. The night before the deadline, John realizes that in order to finish his work, he requires a special data analysis software, which was not included in the list of authorized programs. He is also unable to install it on his workstation because he doesn’t have the required privileges. Getting the formal written approval from the security manager is not feasible, because it is going to take too long. John decides to copy the sensitive information required for the analysis on his personal computer using a flash drive to finish the work at home, where he can install any software he wants. He understands the risk but he also wants to get the job done in order to avoid missing the deadline and get good performance review. Unfortunately, he leaves his bag with the flash drive in the taxi on the way back home. He never tells anyone about this incident to avoid embarrassment or a reprimand.

The security manager in this scenario clearly failed to recognize the employee’s needs before implementing the controls. A general rule of thumb to never forget is that employees will most likely work around the security controls to get their work done regardless of the risks this might pose, because they value their main business activities more than compliance with security policies. To address this, security managers should consider analyzing security controls in a given context in order to identify clashes and resolve potential conflicts adjusting the policy. They should also communicate the value of security accordingly. Scaring people and imposing sanctions might not be the best approach.They should instead demonstrate to the employees that they contribute to the efficient operation of the business when they comply with security policies. Not only does security ensure confidentiality and the integrity of information, but it also ensures that the resources are available to complete their primary tasks. Employees need to understand that security is important for achieving the company’s goals, not something that gets in the way. To achieve this, the culture of the organization must change.   About the Author: Leron Zinatullin (@le_rond) is a business-oriented information security professional with several years of proven experience in security architecture and project management. Extensive knowledge and practical experience pertaining to analyzing and solving governance, risk, compliance, information security and privacy issues. Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in this guest author article are solely those of the contributor, and do not necessarily reflect those of Tripwire, Inc. If you are interesting in contributing to The State of Security, contact us here.