London, 14th November: Today, the intelligent cyber security awareness and data analytics platform, CybSafe, announced that it is working on new research into the implementation and impact of simulated phishing.
While simulated phishing campaigns are increasingly employed in both the public and private sectors, almost nothing is known about how they are implemented on the ground. The metrics that are most commonly recorded remain a mystery and what organisations do with them isn’t clear.
The first part of the ‘Simulated Phishing and Employee Cybersecurity Behaviour’ study (SPEC) project seeks to remedy this. In partnership with CREST, UCL, and the University of Bath, the CybSafe team have designed a questionnaire that will uncover not only what CISOs measure and what metrics they use, but critically, how they use these measurements to inform their simulated phishing policies.
“There are many purported ‘cures’ for high risk employees, from training to pay docking, and it’s unlikely that all have the same utility, or will be perceived the same way,” explained Dr John Blythe, Head of Behavioural Science at CybSafe, who will be leading the study.
Further to this, the SPEC research will explore the psychological implications of simulated phishing on staff, including how it influences levels of trust, stress and feelings of fairness amongst staff. Notably, the study will also analyse the effect of punishment as it relates to cyber security.
Dr Blythe added: “This is important, as punishing employees for clicking a phishing link, research suggests, may have several unintended consequences – decreasing a worker’s trust in their organisation, as well as their morale, and ultimately even reducing good cyber security behaviour.”
Oz Alashe, CEO, CybSafe said: “Organisations are currently in the dark when it comes to the true impact of simulated phishing. It’s exciting that CybSafe is leading the way here – uncovering totally new insights.”
The full research report is expected to become publicly available in January 2020. CybSafe will provide participants with exclusive access to the results of the survey, along with an accompanying report, before the public release.
This work was funded by the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security
Threats (ESRC Award: ES/N009614/1)
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About CybSafe
CybSafe is a British cyber security and data analytics company. CybSafe’s artificially intelligent software platform leverages science, data and cognitive computing technology to provide the world’s first truly intelligent awareness, behaviour and culture solution.
This is the end of tick-box awareness training.
CybSafe is headquartered at Level39, the prestigious technology community, based in Canary Wharf, London.
Press contact
Seb Goodman
seb@resonancecrowd.com