Security culture can be defined as attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs (the norms), shared by everyone in an organisation, that determine how people are expected to think about and approach security.
Why is it Required?
Creating and sustaining an effective security culture is an underpinning element of organisational resilience and an essential component of a protective security regime. This culture helps mitigate against a range of threats that could cause physical, brand, reputational, financial or strategic damage to an organisation.
You might consider security culture to be a flexible and adaptive culture that impacts security in an organisation, both in a positive and a negative way. An effective security culture will help develop a security conscious workforce and promote the desired security norms and behaviours your organisation needs from staff, contractors, and other stakeholders.
Benefits
The benefits of an effective security culture include:
- Enhanced Awareness – employees, contractors and other stakeholders are aware of the most relevant security threats and their security related expectations and obligations
- Collective Responsibility – employees are engaged with, and take responsibility for, security issues and are being increasingly likely to identify and report suspicious events
- Improved Compliance – levels of compliance with security requirements increase
- Reduced Risk – the risk of security incidents is reduced, given that employees, contractors and other stakeholders are thinking and acting in more security-conscious ways. Reduced risk of insider incidents.
- Sense of Security – a greater sense of security for workers, contractors, clients/patrons, and stakeholders; and
- Organic Growth -security is organically strengthened without the requirement for excessive spend.
Critical Steps
The four critical steps to realising an effective security culture are:
- Acknowledging that effective security is an underpinning element of organisational resilience and critical to organisational success
- Establishing an appreciation of positive security practices among leaders, managers and employees
- Aligning security with the organisation’s vision, mission, and strategic aspirations, and
- Conveying security as a core value and expectation, rather than as an expensive and arduous obligation.
