About Genius Sports

Genius Sports Group is a sports data and technology company that specialises in data management and integrity services. Working with some of the world’s largest sports leagues and organisations – including the NBA, Premier League and European Tour – its cutting edge technology and data analysis drives revenue and improves the sporting experience of fans and customers.

A truly global operation, Genius Sports Group employs over 1000 people across 16 different locations, all of whom share one vision: to measure and improve the sports industry with data. It has been pioneering sports data since 2000, and its three service offerings – Genius Sports, Betgenius, and Genius Sports Media – have helped to bring sports data to life for audiences all over the world.

‍

The challenge: lacking engagement and lacking data

As data specialists with a global reach, Genius Sports Group has always understood the importance of maintaining high data security compliance standards and being attentive to the human aspect of cyber security. Nevertheless, the company felt it could achieve much more on the human side of the equation.

Engagement was one major challenge. Completion rates on its former awareness solution were low, with content lacking the level of engagement and the conciseness that the security team expected. On some occasions, people didn’t begin using the training platform at all, and even when staff progressed through the software, important security messages often weren’t properly absorbed.

Data was another sticking point. The security team could only track start and completion rates. For a company that understood the significance of data and the insights this could bring, this was a frustrating limitation. “We pride ourselves on being scientific, granular and demonstrating ROI in everything we do”, says Andy Gammon, IT Director at Genius Sports Group. “At the time, this was missing from the way we approached human security.”

“We realised that our previous training scheme had become a tick-box compliance exercise. It had turned into training-for-training’s-sake, and we felt we weren’t actually reducing our risk. We saw a real opportunity to make a change and create an impact with our human cyber security programme.”

‍

Choosing CybSafe: educating and improving security habits at the same time

With headquarters around the globe – in London, NYC, Tallinn, Vilnius, Sofia, Lausanne, Medellin – the organisation wanted a unified solution that could be scaled easily across the company.

Above all, it wanted a solution that would be genuinely engaging for its people – something that would have a tangible impact on the levels of security awareness, and a platform which would positively and measurably affect the security behaviours of its staff. “Our most urgent need,” says Gammon, “was to really increase people’s levels of security awareness and to get our people into good cyber security habits.”

CybSafe emerged as the solution that would achieve this.

‍

Getting started: immediately developing positive attitudes towards security

Genius Sports Group was keen to make the most of launch day and to turn it into a truly memorable event. The company had a detailed rollout plan – including communications, promotion, and timelines – which it shared with CybSafe prior to launch. CybSafe, in turn, collaborated closely with Genius Sports over Slack and Zoom to ensure that the onboarding was a success.

On launch day, Genius Sports’ various offices were filled with a whole host of CybSafe collateral – from t-shirts and screensavers, to posters and cupcakes. In the London office, two CybSafe professionals were on hand to support the rollout process in person, and Genius Sports had its very own CybSafe ambassadors who were present to help people with the platform and answer questions.

‍

The impact: people impact & building a culture of success

After just 2 months on the CybSafe platform, Genius Sports Group has already seen considerable improvement in the security awareness, behaviour, and culture of its people.

In terms of engagement, which used to be a major challenge using the old platform, the company is particularly impressed. The underlying data shows just how engaged the business’ people have become with their own security, and this comes across visibly in the emerging security cultures of the various offices. “I was in Sofia recently where we have a lot of live operators who watch matches and input data,” says Andy Gammon. “It’s fantastic to see just how security conscious they’ve become. Our people have not only learnt from CybSafe’s content, but they understand the importance of it, and they’re acting on what they’ve learnt. Our people are much more aware of the risks posed to the business and to themselves, and they’re changing their behaviours as a result.”

Importantly, the improvements that the Group has been seeing haven’t come at the cost of lost man-hours or productivity. Each week, staff complete just one to two short modules, which doesn’t interfere with their work schedules. “CybSafe’s digestible content has allowed us to set reasonable, achievable targets for our people. We’ve supported this with small get togethers – such as bacon sandwich lunchtimes in London – where our staff can complete cyber security modules together in a more social setting without interrupting their day.”

Another major benefit has been CybSafe’s ability to spark cyber security conversations between staff members, and also within the platform itself. Using the CybSafe user insight functionality, for example, the security team has been able to identify several areas of risk and opportunities for improvement. “We’ve had a huge number of very useful suggestions and ideas from our people that we’re now implementing on the ground. CybSafe has really helped us to open those channels of communication.”

‍

The future: identifying a network of ‘infosec champions’

Off the back of significant success already, the Group is keen to now make the most of CybSafe’s data analytics capabilities. The business is currently in the process of setting up security guilds with regional infosec champions within each of their worldwide offices, and CybSafe is set to play an integral role here. “The platform data will underpin a lot of this activity. We’re now able to produce and share personalised reports for each office to show the types of risks that are present and what each office should be doing about those risks.”

Overall, CybSafe has made a considerable impression on the people at Genius Sports. As Andy Gammon summarises,

We’ve seen exactly the kind of improvement in engagement and security behaviour that we were hoping for. CybSafe has been a game-changer for us.

Andy Gammon

IT Director, Genius Sports Group