The Contributions of Information Security Culture and Human Relations to the Improvement of Situational Awareness

Author(s):  
Janne Merete Hagen

The chapter gives an overview of business practices and how people and human relations influence situational awareness and information security in an organization. There is still a long way to go in training employees in information security and improving employees’ information security awareness. Motivated and trained employees have the ability to detect and report security weaknesses and breaches, including near-miss incidents, and in this way, they may provide a valuable defense-in-depth-capability that is often lacking. The chapter discusses two approaches to overcome the barriers to building situational awareness promulgated in the general deterrence theory and socio-technical theory.

Author(s):  
Shuhaili Talib ◽  
Nathan L. Clarke ◽  
Steven M. Furnell

Good security cannot be achieved through technical means alone and a solid understanding of the issues and how to protect one’s self is required from users. Whilst many initiatives, programs and strategies have been proposed to improve the level of information security awareness, most have been directed at organizations. Given people’s use of technology is primarily focused between the workplace and home; this paper seeks to understand the knowledge and practice relationship between these environments. Through a developed survey, it was identified that the majority of the learning about information security occurred in the workplace, where clear motivations, such as legislation and regulation, existed. Results found that users were more than willing to engage with such awareness raising initiatives. From a comparison of practice between work and home environments, it was found that this knowledge and practice obtained at the workplace was transferred to the home environment. Given this positive transferability of knowledge and the willingness to learn about how to remain secure, an opportunity exists to move away from specific organizational awareness programs and to move towards awareness raising strategies that will develop an all-round individual security culture for users independent of the environment they are operating in.


Author(s):  
Shuhaili Talib ◽  
Nathan L. Clarke ◽  
Steven M. Furnell

Good security cannot be achieved through technical means alone and a solid understanding of the issues and how to protect one’s self is required from users. Whilst many initiatives, programs and strategies have been proposed to improve the level of information security awareness, most have been directed at organizations. Given people’s use of technology is primarily focused between the workplace and home; this paper seeks to understand the knowledge and practice relationship between these environments. Through a developed survey, it was identified that the majority of the learning about information security occurred in the workplace, where clear motivations, such as legislation and regulation, existed. Results found that users were more than willing to engage with such awareness raising initiatives. From a comparison of practice between work and home environments, it was found that this knowledge and practice obtained at the workplace was transferred to the home environment. Given this positive transferability of knowledge and the willingness to learn about how to remain secure, an opportunity exists to move away from specific organizational awareness programs and to move towards awareness raising strategies that will develop an all-round individual security culture for users independent of the environment they are operating in.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurul Asmui Azmi Md Azmi ◽  
Ai Ping Teoh ◽  
Ali Vafaei-Zadeh ◽  
Haniruzila Hanifah

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine factors, which influence information security culture among employees of telecommunications companies. The motivation for this study was the rise in the number of data breach incidents caused by the organizations’ own employees. Design/methodology/approach A total of 139 usable responses were collected via a Web-based questionnaire survey from employees of Malaysian telecommunications companies. Data were analysed by using SmartPLS 3. Findings Security education, training and awareness (SETA) programmes and information security awareness were found to have a positive and significant impact on Information Security Culture. Additionally, self-reported employees’ security behaviour was found to act as a partial mediator on the relationship between information security awareness and information security culture. Research limitations/implications The study was cross-sectional in nature. Therefore, it could not measure changes in population over time. Practical implications The empirical data provides a new perspective on significant elements that influence information security culture in an emerging market. Organizations in the telecommunications industry can now recognize that SETA programmes and information security awareness have a significant impact on information security culture. Employees’ security behaviour also mediates the relationship between information security awareness and information security culture. Originality/value This is the first study to analyse the mediating effect of employees’ security behaviour on the relationship between information security awareness and information security culture in the Malaysian telecommunications context.


ITNOW ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 50-51
Author(s):  
Federico Iaschi

Abstract Information security culture can affect your business, both good and bad. Federico Iaschi, MBCS CISSP CISM, describes the crucial steps that help develop a successful information security awareness programme.


Author(s):  
I. D. Rudinskiy ◽  
D. Ya. Okolot

The article discusses aspects of the formation of information security culture of college students. The relevance of the work is due to the increasing threats to the information security of the individual and society due to the rapid increase in the number of information services used. Based on this, one of the important problems of the development of the information society is the formation of a culture of information security of the individual as part of the general culture in its socio-technical aspect and as part of the professional culture of the individual. The study revealed the structural components of the phenomenon of information security culture, identified the reasons for the interest in the target group of students. It justifies the need for future mid-level specialists to form an additional universal competency that ensures the individual’s ability and willingness to recognize the need for certain information, to identify and evaluate the reliability and reliability of data sources. As a result of the study, recommendations were formulated on the basis of which a culture of information security for college students can be formed and developed and a decomposition of this process into enlarged stages is proposed. The proposals on the list of disciplines are formulated, within the framework of the study of which a culture of information security can develop. The authors believe that the recommendations developed will help future mid-level specialists to master the universal competency, consisting in the ability and willingness to recognize the need for certain information, to identify and evaluate the reliability and reliability of data sources, as well as to correctly access the necessary information and its further legitimate use, which ultimately forms a culture of information security.


2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 47-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nico Martins ◽  
Adéle da Veiga

An information security culture is influenced by various factors, one being regulatory requirements. The United Kingdom (UK) has been regulated through the UK Data Protection Act since 1995, whereas South Africa (SA) only promulgated the Protection of Personal Information Act (PoPI) in 2013. Both laws stipulate requirements from an information security perspective with regard to the processing of personal information, however in the UK this has been regulated for a longer period. Consequently, it is to be expected that the information security culture for organisations in the UK will be significantly different from that of SA. This raises the question as to whether the same information security culture assessment (ISCA) instrument could be used in an organisation with offices in both jurisdictions, and whether it might be necessary to customise it according the particular country’s enforcement of information security and privacy-related conditions. This is reviewed, firstly from a theoretical perspective, and secondly a factorial invariance analysis was conducted in a multinational organisation with offices in both the UK and SA, using data from an ISCA questionnaire, to determine possible factorial invariances in terms of the ISCA.


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