Awareness training isn’t enough to protect your business—security behavior change is your missing key

Cybercrime Magazine predicts that cybercrime will cost the world 8 trillion dollars in 2023. That’s $255,000 every second.

Meanwhile, 82% of data breaches in 2022 contained the human element. This makes cybercrime a unique threat in which people are both the cause and the solution.

The reality of security compliance

Attackers already target employees. If you think your existing SAT—security awareness training—program is enough to stop things from escalating—think again.

69% of employees say they have knowingly bypassed their company’s cybersecurity guidance. 74% would be willing to do so if it helped them accomplish a business goal.

It’s a shame that the business goal might come with an additional $9.4m price tag.

See where we're going with this?

Awareness isn’t enough. Compliance isn’t enough.

From awareness to real behavior change

At Hoxhunt, we’ve been going from security awareness and focusing on human risk management with measurable behavior change. Why focus on inefficient awareness and compliance strategies when you can use your human intelligence and stop threats as they happen?

After a year of using Hoxhunt, 60% of users actively report real and simulated threats. The fastest 10% of them report a threat in 55 seconds. (Hoxhunt internal data, 2023)

The faster you respond, the smaller the risk and the price tag. Globally, our users report a threat on average every 90 seconds. (Hoxhunt internal data, 2023) We use this data to everyone’s benefit by sharing insight, threat reports, and even concrete examples of malicious emails.

The important thing is people are actively reporting threats, not just ignoring them. Or even worse, interacting with them, despite knowing better.

Focus on the metrics that matter

Don’t just take our word for it. The AES Corporation recently compared Hoxhunt to three major security awareness tools—the numbers speak for themselves.

The company saw a 526% increase in reporting rate, a 79% decrease in failure rate, and a 58% decrease in miss rate. We see you, users who ignore phishing training! All of this combined made them 2533% more resilient as a company.

Last year, Finland’s biggest telecom company Elisa ran a benchmark study showing that employees who had undergone Hoxhunt training were 20 times less likely to click malicious links.

We believe that real, measurable behavior change is the key to cybersecurity and human risk management.

Industry analysts agree, with Gartner stating: “By 2030, all widely adopted cybersecurity control frameworks will focus on measurable behavior change rather than compliance-based training as the critical measure of efficacy for human risk management.”

Read more about creating real behavior change in our playbook How to Create Behavior Change With Security Awareness Training.

About the author

Annika is a marketer who loves observing and analyzing human behavior. She doesn't trust a single email she gets, and believes others can get there too.