Engaging end users using marketing, psychology and safety theory.
About Geordie Stewart
His award winning masters thesis at the Royal Holloway Information Security Group examined information security awareness from a fresh perspective as a marketing and communications challenge. In his regular speaking appearances at international information security conferences such as RSA, ISACA and ISSA he challenges conventional thinking on risk culture and communication.
In addition to senior security management roles in large UK organisations Geordie writes the security awareness column for the ISSA international journal.
Awareness Blog
Security Awareness Tips From A Social Engineer
Exploiting human firewalls through social engineering is an increasingly popular method of attack. Recently, a hacker has claimed that they compromised CIA Director John Brennan’s email by tricking a Verizon employee into divulging details of his account. These human exploits are likely to get worse as technical controls improve and organizations continue to liberalize their…
DetailsWhat the TJ Hooper Case Means for Security Awareness
For those not familiar with the case, TJ Hooper was a landmark in tort law that established an important standard for negligence. The case was heard in 1932 to assign liability for a lost cargo. A tug towing the cargo on a barge had set to sea in good weather but later that night there…
Details7 Habits of Highly Successful Security Policies
Security policies are a great opportunity to influence behaviour. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons they’re not usually as effective as they could be. Despite our efforts to sell the value of information security, actually reading a policy is less popular than a fart on a plane. There’s a reason that a security policy has…
DetailsDramatic Communications
I’m always genuinely excited to find someone doing something new in the field of security awareness. This month I caught up with Sarah Janes, Managing Director at Layer 8 Ltd. Sarah started her career running security awareness at British Telecom (BT) and has delivered award winning behavioural change programmes to FTSE 100 companies. Her team…
DetailsCriminals and Moral Codes
Should we try to reason with criminals? Is the threat of punishment the only influence that criminals will respond to? What should we do when we suspect people are taking data with them when they leave a company, leaking to the competition or stealing equipment from the office but can’t prove it? As well as…
DetailsMoral Hazard
In our efforts to promote secure behaviour, our task is often made more difficult by the fact that often the people we need to influence are often not the same people who would suffer in the event of a security breach. Typically, the people who would suffer most in the event of a breach are…
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