Identifying and Measuring Human Risk in Your Security Program

Many organizations can instantly report patch compliance, endpoint protection, or the status of firewalls. However, they aren’t able to answer a critical question: “How exposed are our people right now?” 

Despite having robust security measures, human risk often remains unreported and unmeasured. While organizations lay their entire focus on the technical side, leaving the human side unchecked and vulnerable. Therefore, there lies a significant gap in measuring human risk in cybersecurity.

The smallest of errors, intentional or unintentional, can lead to a cybersecurity breach, disrupting the financial state of organizations. This lack of human-layer risk visibility can allow attackers to bypass even the most sophisticated and advanced systems. In this blog, we will discuss human risk metrics, how to identify them, and steps you can undertake to reduce attacks due to human error. 

Why Measuring Human Risk Matters?

“You can’t manage anything without measuring it”. This works in cybersecurity, also. Without measuring the human risk metrics, organizations will remain blind to the potential security risks. 

For example, a phishing attack has been successful in bypassing multi-factor authentication (MFA). Why, because an employee of yours has clicked on a fraudulent link. Even though your organization had robust technical measures to safeguard against sophisticated attacks, a small error from a human nullified every security control. Thus, people security management should be a crucial part of your cybersecurity programs. 

Continuous human risk management can allow you to identify specific vulnerabilities and develop targeted solutions to them, instead of depending on a one-size-fits-all training program. 

What Constitutes Human Risk in Cybersecurity?

Human risk in cybersecurity means the potential impact of users’ actions or inactions that can compromise an organization’s security. It could be anything from a lapse in judgment due to pressure to poor adherence to security policies and ignoring red flags. Key areas of human risk in cybersecurity are: 

• Decision Making Under Pressure

An employee can make a wrong move in a stressful situation. He/she can approve a fraudulent MFA prompt, providing access to malicious actors. 

• Poor Data Storage Practices

Storing important data on unsecured devices can leave organizations vulnerable to cyberattacks. Furthermore, sending encrypted emails also puts organizations at risk. 

• Ignoring Suspicious Requests

A lack of attention when approving requests from external sources or even from colleagues can result in data breaches and financial loss. 

• Not Adhering to Security Policies

Human risk also comes up when employees do not follow the security policies religiously. It can be in the form of using weak passwords or sharing their credentials. 

These behaviors are associated with knowledge gaps and an inability to deal with adverse situations. These factors make measuring human risk in cybersecurity through regular assessments and real-time simulation a necessary part of the defence strategy. 

Common Blind Spots in Human Risk Visibility

To this day, there are organizations that believe in annual security awareness training programs, completely ignoring the idea of regular assessments. These blind spots limit human-layer risk visibility. Common issues include:

Dependency on Annual Awareness Scores

Assessing employees once a year doesn’t provide the real picture of employees’ behavior. Regular assessment is required to get accurate and real-time insights. 

Failure to Track Near Misses

Sometimes, employees delay in reporting suspicious emails. These small warning signs often go unnoticed. Keeping a track of these “near misses” incidents can help in measuring the vigilance of employees. 

No Role-Based Breakdown

Cyber risk varies from department to department and role to role as well. Thus, depending on size, fit training for all won’t bring out any fruitful results. Rather, it hides the specific vulnerabilities unique to teams or departments that require utmost attention. 

Ignoring Third-Party and Contractor Risks

Contractors or third-party vendors are often not included in internal risk assessments, even though they can be responsible for a significant portion of human risk.

Framework for Measuring Human Risk

Measuring human risk in cybersecurity requires a solid and comprehensive framework. The AAPE framework checks all the boxes and is a perfect fit for measuring human risk metrics and offering solutions to them.

Assess

The first thing is to assess the employees through conducting role-specific phishing simulations or social engineering tests. This helps in gathering data about human behavior. 

Aware

Test the amount of knowledge retained through micro-assessments integrated in workflows, allowing continuous awareness. 

Protect

Take note of the reduction in human risk incidents due to technical products like TDMARC and prominent control management. 

Empower

Measure the amount taken by employees to report an incident and their frequency. For example, how fast they reported a suspicious link they encountered. 

The AAPE framework offers a structured approach to measure and mitigate human risk by focusing on their overall training to combat cyber attackers. 

Key Metrics for Human Risk

To track human risk in cybersecurity, organizations can use the following metrics: 

• Click-through Rate on Phishing Simulations: Measure susceptibility to phishing based on specific roles within the organization.
  
• Time-to-Report Suspicious Emails: Track how quickly employees report potential threats, indicating their level of vigilance.
  
• Number of False Positives: False positives (when employees report legitimate emails as suspicious) show whether employees are erring on the side of caution.
  
• Access Hygiene: Track metrics such as password reuse, privilege creep, and adherence to access control policies.
  
• Behavior Trends: Monitor improvements in risky behavior over time, reflecting the effectiveness of ongoing training and security interventions.

These human risk metrics can be tracked continuously, offering actionable insights into human risk trends and helping InfoSec teams improve their security posture.

Building a Continuous Human Risk Monitoring Process

If you are measuring human risk only once a year, then you are more likely to face cyber attacks. Instead of treating it as a one-time exercise, it should be conducted regularly. You can integrate it into your daily workflow to build an effective people security measurement program.

You can start by adding human risk performance indicators (KPIs) to the SoC dashboard, allowing you to check human and technical metrics together. Furthermore, quarterly review cycles can be conducted to track progress and revamp training modules based on real-time data. 

Each department faces different challenges and risks. Thus, benchmarking across departments and teams ensures prudent resource allocation. It also helps in allocating substantial resources to each area, in line with their needs. 

Aligning Human Risk Measurement with Compliance

To safeguard against legal and regulatory obligations, it is important to align your people security measurement strategy with industry standards and compliance. Map human risk metrics to frameworks like ISO 27001, SOC 2, GDPR, and HIPAA, which require continuous risk management and evidence of effective risk reduction.

Continuous evaluation and assessment allow organizations to be audit-ready and save their time and efforts during audits. With security measures compiled, you do not have to worry about an audit or do any extra preparation for it. 

Tools and Platforms to Support Human Risk Measurement

If you are looking for tools for measuring human risk in cybersecurity, then Threatcop is the best choice for you. Here are different products by ThreatCop that can help in achieving strong human-layer risk visibility. 

• TSAT (Threatcop Security and Awareness Training): It is an AI-powered cyberattack simulator that trains employees to deal with phishing and other cybersecurity threats with its real-time simulation. Employees’ performance is analyzed and used to prepare custom-made training programs.
  
• TLMS (Threatcop Learning Management System): It ensures employees remain informed and updated with the latest trends in cybersecurity. TLMS has more than 1300 interactive modules, allowing organizations to train their employees efficiently and effectively.

• TPIR (Threatcop Phishing Incident Response): TPIR helps in the timely and speedy reporting of suspicious emails. It automates reporting and analysis procedures, helping security teams to investigate and stop breaches quickly. 

Conclusion: Turning Data Into Action

Measuring human risk in cybersecurity is vital for organizations aiming to curtail vulnerabilities due to human error. By regular assessment and gathering real-time data, you can create robust security measures at the technical and human front. 

Since human risk metrics enable quantification of the risk, it becomes extremely important to collect data and use it to prepare an effective people security measurement strategy.