How to Measure Employee Cyber Risk Score

Human error is one of the top contributing factors for cyber breaches. The point at which human error can create a breach is often when an employee clicks a malicious link or fails to properly manage sensitive data, making the employee the weakest link in an organisation’s security structure. This is why risk assessment for cybersecurity has now placed so much emphasis on measuring employee behaviour and calculating an employee cyber risk score.

By utilising cyber risk scoring, organisations can identify risky user behaviour, increase security awareness and address potential breaches before they happen. In this blog, we will discuss how to measure cyber risk, calculate cybersecurity risks, and utilise risk scores to enhance an organisation’s defensive posture.

Why Measuring Employee Cyber Risk Matters

Organisations invest in advanced security technologies, but vulnerabilities from human behaviour will continue to exist. According to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report, human error accounts for a significant share of cybersecurity incidents worldwide.

Due to this, modern cybersecurity frameworks recommend assessing user behavior with cyber risk ratings.

Measuring employee cyber risk enables businesses to

• Detect high-risk users
• Enhance security awareness training
• Reduce Phishing & Social Engineering
• Enhance Total Cybersecurity Posture

Without conducting a proper cybersecurity risk assessment, your organisation’s internal cyber risks could leave it unnecessarily vulnerable to hackers.

What is Cyber Risk Scoring?

The method for assessing the potential of a user, device, or system to contribute to a cybersecurity event is called cyber risk scoring. Cyber Risk Scoring assesses how likely it is that an employee will engage in behaviours contributing to a potential cybersecurity incident by evaluating the following types of behaviours:

• Click on dangerous links
• Reply to phishing emails
• Utilize weak passwords
• Misuse of confidential information
• Fail to adhere to security policies

Every employee behaviour added together produces the individual risk score that is used to prioritise which employees need to be assisted or trained. Organisations implementing cyber risk scoring systems should be able to identify which employees need additional awareness training.

Risk Calculation Formula in Cyber Security

One of the most widely used methods in assessing cybersecurity risk is through the standard calculation of cybersecurity risk:

Cyber Security Risk = Probability of Incident Occurs × Consequence if it Occurs

Where:

Probability of Incident Occurs = The chance that a security breach will occur due to employee actions or inaction.

Consequence if it occurs = The potential for loss of funds, loss of private or sensitive company information, and damage to the company’s reputation if the breach does take place.

How to Measure Cyber Risk for Employees

Organisations can measure employee cyber risk using a structured approach that combines behaviour monitoring, simulations, and risk scoring models.

Phishing Simulation Tests

Through phishing simulations, organizations can observe how employees react to fraudulent emails. For example, if employees have a strong tendency of falling for phishing simulations, they will receive higher cyber risk score.

You can learn more about identifying phishing threats here:

Security Awareness Training Performance

Performance during security awareness training is also factored into assigning an organization’s cyber risk score. Organizations that implement structured security awareness programs often experience significant reductions in the number of human-caused cyber incidents.

Learn more about employee training programs here:

Behavioral Monitoring

The latest generation of security platforms will analyse the behaviour patterns of your employees such as:

• Anomalies/irregularities in login
• Access to files which are deemed suspicious
• Unusual activity on the network
• Violating company policies

They will calculate the appropriate risk level for each user from an organisation’s perspective based on this behavioural analysis.

Access Privilege Evaluation

Risk increases when users with privileged access are compromised by a malicious individual. 

Typically, the security team would assign a higher risk score upon users who had administrative privileges or had access to financial systems.

Best Practices for Reducing Employee Cyber Risk

Successful organisations implementing cybersecurity management are doing so by following certain approaches and making continuous improvements.

Providing ongoing Security Awareness Training

Periodic security awareness training to teach employees how to identify various threats like phishing schemes or social engineering attacks, as well as protect against malware.

Utilising Risk-Based Security Monitoring

Use a cyber risk scoring system to identify high-risk users, so managers can develop targeted methods to reduce their behaviour.

Conducting Regular Risk Assessments

Performing periodic risk assessment for cybersecurity will allow for the identification of future/new vulnerabilities along with an evaluation of employee behaviour that is putting data at risk.

Maintaining Security Policies and Procedures

A clearly written set of security policies will provide the guidance employees need to understand how to manage sensitive information and practice proper digital hygiene in their job functions.

Conclusion

Because of the ongoing evolution of cyber threats, businesses must focus on a broader scope than just technology and also address the human aspect of vulnerabilities. By using a structured risk assessment process, organizations can conduct a thorough risk assessment for cyber security. In addition, through the use of risk assessment and cyber risk scoring tools, organizations are better able to identify areas of risky behaviour, improve the level of employee awareness of cyber security threats, and ultimately decrease the occurrence of potential breaches. By applying structured risk calculation methodologies and ongoing user behaviours, as well as ongoing training, organizations can achieve a dramatic decrease in the total amount of their overall cyber security risk.

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