From Compliance to Impact: Tracing the Transformation of an Organizational Security Awareness Program

Published

September 14, 2023

Author(s)

Julie Haney, Wayne Lutters

Abstract

There is a growing recognition of the need for a transformation from organizational security awareness programs focused on compliance -- measured by training completion rates -- to those resulting in behavior change. However, few prior studies have begun to unpack the organizational practices of the security awareness teams tasked with executing program transformation. We conducted a year-long case study of a security awareness program in a United States (U.S.) government agency, collecting data via field observations, interviews, and documents. Our findings reveal the challenges and practices involved in the progression of a security awareness program from being compliance-focused to emphasizing impact on workforce attitudes and behaviors. We uniquely capture transformational organizational security awareness practices in action via a longitudinal study involving multiple workforce perspectives. Our study insights can serve as a resource for other security awareness programs and workforce development initiatives aimed at better defining the security awareness work role.

Citation

arxiv

Pub Weblink

https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.07724

Pub Type

Websites

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2309.07724

Local Download

Keywords

cybersecurity awareness, training, compliance, measures, case study

Citation

Haney, J. and Lutters, W. (2023), From Compliance to Impact: Tracing the Transformation of an Organizational Security Awareness Program, arxiv, [online], https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2309.07724, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=935669, https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.07724 (Accessed April 28, 2024)