WHITE PAPER
Guaranteeing Changes in Risky On-the-Job Behaviors
By Dr. James Norrie, Founder & CEO
How We Reduce Any Organization’s Cybersecurity Risk:
Why are we so confident that we can guarantee a dramatic decrease in any organization’s cybersecurity risk? And what measurable proof do we have that our solution is statistically superior to any other alternative? It all begins with a simple fact: we are all different, with our own personalities and tendencies and preferences around risk.
Each enterprise’s cybersecurity program needs to adapt to this obvious fact to succeed. Programs need more sophisticated ways to embed security awareness deeply into daily corporate life, novel methods that educate employees about the impact of their own security behaviors, ways to provoke mindfulness to combat situational distractibility, and consequences that allow management to praise employees when doing things right instead of focusing on their failures. cyberconIQ delivers a proprietary solution that encompasses all that and more.
The Underlying Theory:
New research involving a large-scale study of 1500 people conducted by the University of Basel suggests an individual’s propensity to take risks remains stable over time, akin to differences in our personalities and other individual characteristics such as one’s Intelligence Quotient (IQ). The findings have been published in leading journals like Science Advances and Nature & Human Behaviour. Investigators wanted to determine how our risk preferences drive risk-related decisions to determine if risk preference depends on the context or is largely consistent in different situations.
“Our findings indicate that risk-taking propensity has a psychometric structure similar to that of psychological personality characteristics…there is a general factor of risk preference,” said Dr. Renato Frey from the University of Basel and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. “In other words, your willingness to take risks may vary across different areas of your life, but it will always be affected by the underlying general factor of risk preference.”
This finding is completely consistent with cyberconIQ’s own proprietary research that drew a similar conclusion. Research using the scientific method ultimately led to the development of the patented myQ instrument that we use to assess anyone’s online risk style today. We can predict risk appetite, link individual behavior to specific vulnerabilities, and then educate employees about voluntarily changing their security habits to lower risk. These relevant personality insights gained from the myQ instrument make this possible.
Isn’t This Hard to Do?
Yes, and no. Of course, we expect new prospects and clients to be skeptical of our claims. And they should be. They continually hear claims of distinction and difference from vendors. The market offers hundreds of choices regarding whom they choose to trust to make a difference in their employees’ security behavior. And, let’s face it, changing vendors is both a hassle and has a cost, right? Nobody will make that decision unless they are very sure they will gain a measurable ROI and superior result.
However, measuring risk propensity is easy. Our tool takes any employee only 8–10 minutes to complete and provides them with personal insights that immediately begin to change their perspective on their own security behavior. Employees report this as fun, and providing a level of developmental insight into themselves that makes them safer online at both home and work. When paired with our differentiated education platform, sophisticated assessment methods, and personalized training plan, we can remediate any employees’ propensity to fail phishing tests between 45% – 95% within 90 days. Further, by helping employees get it right, we reduce your need to remediate what they are doing wrong. This positive cycle of empowerment creates a voluntary and sustainable behavior change.
But don’t just accept our marketing claims. Accept scientific proof of our difference instead. Download the full white paper for summaries of independent, client-led studies where deploying our platform created an immediate, measurable reduction in risky behavior that directly reduced cybersecurity costs and risks.
Click here to download a the full version of this white paper – including Industry Case Studies for Insurance and Financial Services.
For more information or to learn more about the cyberconIQ solution, please contact us at info@cyberconiq.com