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Empower People, Reduce Cyber Risk

Entrepreneurs Fintech ICBA ThinkTECH
Posted on March 3, 2021
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Empower People, Reduce Cyber Risk

by David Shipley, CEO and Co-founder of Beauceron Security

Thanks to Beauceron Security for contributing to the ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator’s Founder Feature series! Beauceron helps organizations execute cybersecurity awareness programs that empower individuals to make better decisions and reduce their cyber risk. To meet Beauceron and the eight other Fintechs in the 2021 ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator, powered by The Venture Center, click here. For questions, please email founders@venturecenter.co.

The world of cybersecurity can at times feel overwhelming for the vast majority of people. It’s full of technical jargon, and bad news continues to pile up every day about data breaches or attacks that render a business unable to operate unless they pay mysterious criminals a ransom.

The first step in tackling this complex problem is understanding what cybersecurity is – and what it is not.

The second step is recognizing how to leverage the meaning of cyber to create a positive security culture for your organization.

  1. Cyber does not mean technology. The word cyber was chosen by author Norbert Weiner as part of the word cybernetics, the name for his new science in  his seminal work, “Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine.”  The word “cyber” comes from the Greek word kubernētēs, which means the steersman, or pilot. Weiner chose this Greek work because cyber is all about the relationship between people, technology and control.

  2. Your best defense in cyber is your people. According to the 2020 Verizon data breach report, five of the top seven causes of a breach can be traced back to people, whether it’s phishing, password hygiene, physical access, data handling issues or malware. When some folks hear this, they may think people are the problem, or the weakest link. But your people are your bank’s greatest asset.

  3. The biggest challenge in cybersecurity is no longer awareness. It’s 2021, we’ve never been more broadly aware about cybersecurity than we are today. The challenge for organizations is helping their employees care more about cybersecurity. To do that, you have to make it more clear to folks how they can help you reduce risk, and how actions they perform, whether it’s participating in education or reporting potential phishing e-mails, makes a difference for your bank’s security.

  4. Phish your employees monthly. It’s important that your employees receive regular phishing simulation emails throughout the entire year. This will help keep the threat of social engineering top of mind and provide opportunities to inoculate your team to the latest threats. You can also use the valuable data you gain on employee susceptibility to help refine your incident response and other security plans.

  5. Move beyond fear and toward positivity. While the awareness industry and regulators are still focused on phishing click rate, the more important and positive metric is report rates. When your employees know what a phish is and know how to report it to your team, that’s a positive step towards greater resiliency. Celebrating when team members catch and report a phish creates a positive security culture and moves your team away from thinking of phishing simulations solely as an opportunity for failure, or worse, as the IT team trying to trick them.

At Beauceron Security, we’re energized by putting people in control of technology.  We believe in the power of positive security cultures in organizations and have developed a platform to help organizations go beyond security awareness and embrace security care-ness.

We’ve helped more than 300 customers around the world, including one of the world’s largest financial institutions, build world-class security engagement programs for their teams that tangibly reduce cyber risk.

We’re grateful to be part of the 2021 cohort of the ICBA ThinkTech program and are eager to help community banks in the United States.

Thanks to Beauceron Security for contributing to the ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator’s Founder Feature series! To see more from Beauceron and eight other company founders with a range of solutions from payments and loan automation to cybersecurity and data insights, sign up for this year’s online 2021 ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator Demo Day!