Motivating Cybersecurity Advocates: Implications for Recruitment and Retention

Published

June 19, 2019

Author(s)

Julie Haney, Wayne Lutters

Abstract

Given modern society's dependence on technological infrastructure vulnerable to cyber-attacks, the need to expedite cybersecurity adoption is paramount. Cybersecurity advocates are critical for promoting, educating, and facilitating the uptake of security best practices. Therefore, successfully recruiting and retaining advocates is of utmost importance. Accomplishing this requires an understanding of advocates' motivations and incentives and how these may differ from other cybersecurity professionals. As the first study of its kind, we interviewed 28 cybersecurity advocates to learn about their work motivations. Findings revealed several drivers for cybersecurity advocacy work, most of which were intrinsic motivators. Motivations included interest in the field, sense of duty, self-efficacy, evidence of impact, comradery, and, to a lesser degree, awards/monetary compensation. We leverage these insights for recommendations on how to frame cybersecurity advocacy as a profession that fuels these motivations and how to maintain this across advocates' careers.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of the 2019 ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computer Personnel Research

Conference Dates

June 20-22, 2019

Conference Location

Nashville, TN, US

Conference Title

ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computer Personnel Research

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

cybersecurity, advocacy, motivations, recruitment, retention

Citation

Haney, J. and Lutters, W. (2019), Motivating Cybersecurity Advocates: Implications for Recruitment and Retention, Proceedings of the 2019 ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computer Personnel Research, Nashville, TN, US, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=927445 (Accessed May 5, 2026)

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