Cybersecurity isn’t just an IT issue. It requires the awareness and dedication of every single employee throughout the organization. That starts with creating a culture of cybersafety, so that it becomes a point of pride throughout your business functions, departments and teams.
Tribe offers a strategic communications approach to building a cybersecure culture. We leverage the materials from your existing cybersecurity educational platform and add communications that feature your leadership and employees. The goal is to make cybersecurity personal, with communications that come from inside the company, not an external vendor. Here are the five critical elements of Tribe’s strategy:
An ongoing series of leadership podcasts gives employees a deeper dive into the importance of cybersecurity and the potential impact of ransomware and other threats. Employees need to hear from the CISO, but also from the CEO, the CFO, the head of operations and others. It doesn’t require a large time commitment from leaders, usually only about 30 minutes for their interview. But these podcasts help us align employees throughout your org chart with a collective commitment to cybersecurity.
Employees pay attention to the topics their direct managers tell them are priorities. We make this conversation easier for managers (and more likely to happen) by developing communications tool kits for monthly or quarterly cybersecurity communications. This is a critical component for the entire employee audience, but particularly for frontline or manufacturing employees. Managers are important influencers. We provide them the content to influence their teams to take personal responsibility for cybersecurity.
The goal is not only to make employees aware of cybersecurity risks, but to encourage them to say something when they see something, and to stop before they fall for potential risks. Help them know that the IT team is there to support them. One of the best ways to model that behavior is to highlight examples of employees reporting issues or questioning whether an action is safe. We create videos of employees telling their stories, shooting them remotely, regardless of where they are geographically.
You probably have an existing cybersecurity educational platform with a deep well of excellent content — but it looks and feels like material from an outside vendor. By customizing their educational materials with your overarching cultural theme and branding them with your company’s look and feel, we’re able to help inspire employees with a sense of personal responsibility for keeping the company cybersafe — the same way they may feel personal pride in their vigilance at keeping each other physically safe.
Effecting a significant cultural change doesn’t happen overnight. And it’s not achieved by a short-term fire hose of communications. It requires ongoing communications across a long period of time. Tribe calendarizes your messaging to deliver manageable pieces, featuring monthly themes and a quarterly focus. We can get you going quickly, launching your program within weeks, but results will take a long-term commitment. In the meantime, threats to your cybersecurity are evolving on an ongoing basis.
