The most significant blunder an employee can make does not involve clicking a link, but rather not saying something afterwards. Most breaches do not begin with a sophisticated attack; rather, they begin with a mistake that most employees don’t mention. Clicking on the link is a mistake. Nevertheless, not saying anything is a breach. That moment of hesitation can cost you millions.
In a recent ThinkCyber report (2024), it was found that 50% of employees admitted to not having reported a potential security mistake due to fear of being blamed or embarrassed. To attackers, that silence is an invitation.
When employees don’t report something quickly, the threat remains in your environment, which allows the attacker to escalate privileges, exfiltrate data, and dig even deeper into your company.
The real challenge is not detection but rather culture.
It is easy to think about employees as being careless. They do not. They are careful, just careful in the wrong direction. Here is what holds them back:
Fear of punishment: They are worried they are going to be disciplined for their actions or labelled a “weak link.”
Embarrassment: Nobody wants to admit they got fooled.
Unclarity: They don’t know how to report if they should.
Perceived consequence: They think IT already knows or “it’s not that important.”
These barriers are not technical; they are cultural. And they remain even in well-established organizations with operational SOCs and detection capabilities.
You can’t automate trust; you must cultivate it.
Every unreported click, suspicious email, or misconfiguration is a ticking time bomb. When employees do not report
Delayed detection: The longer a threat goes unreported, the more data and systems it can touch.
Regulatory exposure: Industries governed by GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS know that the exposure of the inevitable detection delay could mean monumental fines.
Higher remediation costs: Forrester research suggests that incidents identified late will cost 30-40% more to remediate.
Lost trust: When employees see their peers getting blamed versus supported, their silence only grows.
You cannot create honesty through fear. You create it through safety, simplicity, and support. Here are the leading organizations doing that differently:
You cannot expect employees to report what they do not recognize.
That’s where TSAT (Threatcop Security Awareness Training) comes in. It does not test a person; it trains their behavior.
Using realistic simulations like phishing, smishing, vishing, and ransomware, TSAT prepares employees with muscle memory to identify and report threats calmly and effectively.
It’s not an exercise in catching them off guard; it’s an exercise in preparing them for the real thing.
When simulation meets empathy, awareness becomes instinct.
Most people won’t report threats when the reporting process takes more than a few clicks.
TPIR (Threatcop Phishing Incident Response) eliminates this friction. With one tap to report, employees can immediately flag a suspicious message from Outlook or Gmail.
TPIR scans the message deep before notifying the SOC team in real time—from spam scores to headers, attachments, sender reputation, and SPF/DKIM/DMARC alignment.
It’s fast, it’s smart, and it’s convenient at work.
That’s the Empower step of Threatcop’s AAPE framework in action.
Recognize employees who quickly report incidents, even if they have clicked the phishing link first.
Some companies proudly announce “fast reporters of the month” publicly or provide small bonuses just to encourage their employees to take the first step. The point is not the prize; it’s the message: We prefer honesty over perfection.
When employees notice that transparency feels like appreciation (not shame), your reporting numbers will increase.
Cyber awareness must start at the top. When leaders share stories about the times they were almost duped by a scam, it removes the stigma.
Encourage your leaders to spend a few minutes discussing examples of near-misses at all-hands meetings. Get employees to normalize it! Demonstrate how reporting doesn’t mean to be a snitch: you are on a team.
A CISO who says, “If you ever don’t know, tell us; nobody gets in trouble for suspicion,” unequivocally sets the tone for everyone else.
You can’t improve what you don’t measure; this includes culture. The effectiveness of your incident reporting culture will become evident with earlier detection, better responses, and increased employee confidence.
This is how to measure the actual improvement:
An effective organization will see increased reporting, not decreased. At first glance, that may seem like an increase in incidents, but it actually means employees noticed the issue, acted, and trust the organization enough to report on it.
Simply put, when reporting rates increase, it indicates individuals are not covering up items but are helping you identify issues sooner.
Observations should focus on the following:
Dwell time is the period between when a threat enters your environment and when it is reported, and it can be one of the most powerful indicators of cultural maturity.
The shorter dwell time indicates:
We are all humans; mistakes can happen, but repeating the same mistake indicates a break in your awareness circle.
Tracking your repeat offender count will guide you to where more coaching or simulations (via TSAT) are needed.
Over a period of time, we hope to see:
Encouraging incident reporting is not about training people to be perfect; that’s impossible. It is about training people to feel comfortable speaking up.
Every report provides some visibility to your security team, every response builds trust, and every conversation builds organizational resilience.
Mistakes will happen. Silence does not have to.
Turn incidents into insights, and see the power of Threatcop TPIR to empower your employees to report perceived threats now.
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