In today’s digital age, cybersecurity is a top priority for organizations. However, many boards of directors are not fully aware of the risks their companies face. In this blog post, we will explore the board’s role in cybersecurity, as well as some ways they can boost their cybersecurity knowledge and get more involved in organizational security. 

The board’s role in cybersecurity cannot be overstated. Board members are traditionally responsible for a company’s risk management approach. And cybersecurity is a key component of this approach. In recent years, a number of boards have been held fully liable in lawsuits for data breaches, and have come under increased regulatory scrutiny regarding their cybersecurity involvement. So board members need to be fully aware of the risks their companies face, how to mitigate them, and how to handle serious breaches and hacks should they occur. 

Issues With Traditional Security Approaches

To become more personally knowledgeable and experienced with cybersecurity, board members need to take solid steps to ensure that they and their company’s employees and managers are properly trained in good security habits. And that usually means making some big changes to existing protocols. Too many companies (with their board’s approval, whether active or tacit), still rely on traditional security awareness training (SAT) and phish assessments as their primary method of training employees. These training and testing approaches do keep companies in “compliance” with security regulations, but they’re actually quite harmful. 

Why are they harmful? For one, traditional SAT relies on passive learning, which has been proven time and again to result in poor knowledge retention. It focuses on compliance rather than genuine understanding, and is forgotten quickly. Phish testing often creates a culture of paranoia among employees and puts them at odds with their security team – instead of being allied with them, as they should be. And, perhaps worst of all, when company leaders (including boards) feel that being in “compliance” via basic SAT and phish testing makes them safe, they are lulled into a false sense of security which leads to complacency and, ironically, more breaches. 

Security Solutions for Boards and Their Organizations

One solution to SAT issues is threat awareness. Unlike traditional SAT, threat awareness platforms show individuals the actual threats to their data, and where it has been exposed, which helps them understand how they are genuinely under threat from hackers, with a personal stake in threat awareness. Threat awareness then gives them the specific knowledge and power needed to protect themselves – through training videos that are precisely relevant to the issue at hand, and through directions to links and sites by which they can secure their data or have it erased. 

By shifting employee perceptions toward the personal, and then empowering them, threat awareness generates an attitude of motivated, individualized responsibility toward security. It moves everyone, including boards, out of compliance and into a place of active engagement with their security. 

Indeed, personalized threat awareness helps board members too. When board members are able to see their own breached and leaked data, they are motivated to take action. This can include adopting strong passwords, enabling two-factor authentication, and being more cautious about sharing sensitive information. Seeing how their own data has been leaked adds a sense of urgency, which helps change their attitude toward company security at large.

By providing employees, managers, and board members with personal threat intelligence, organizations can help build a strong cybersecurity culture. Board members are more likely to take ownership of their own security, rather than relying solely on IT departments to protect them. Combined with active employee security engagement, this creates a culture of collaboration and teamwork, making it easier to implement strong security measures.

Key Takeaways

1. The board’s role in cybersecurity is crucial, and board members need to be as knowledgeable and active as possible in that area. Board members should be fully aware of the risks their companies face and what steps are being taken to mitigate those risks.
2. To help board members better understand cybersecurity risks, organizations can implement an individualized threat awareness program which gives people the personalized power and knowledge that is needed to fully engage in cybersecurity and build good habits. This is particularly important given the growing sophistication of cyber attacks and the ever-evolving threat landscape.
3. By implementing better cybersecurity practices via threat awareness, companies can protect themselves and their stakeholders from potentially devastating consequences.

More From HackNotice

Want to learn more about board members’ role in cybersecurity? Check out our whitepaper, “Data Breach Management In the Boardroom: Vulnerabilities, Solutions, and Why Senior Decision-Makers Need to Be More Active in Cybersecurity.” Click here to download. Join our mailing list to get exclusive first access to our cybersecurity webinars, whitepapers, events, and more!