Why the Human Element is the Most Important

First, let’s take a high-level look at all sub-functions that should be addressed as part of the user awareness, training, and testing program. The following image captures much of what the user awareness, training, and testing program entails.

Figure 9.1: Sub-functions of the user awareness, training, and testing program

Our organizations are dependent on both technology and users to be successful in today’s world. There is a dependency on both to allow for success. Because we live in a world where everything is digitized, and with the availability of the internet, the risk profile of our data has increased substantially. The challenge is that we can put all the technical controls in place to protect our data, but all it takes is for a single user with the right access to become compromised, and the rest is history. In addition, it’s our users, or some users somewhere, who are designing and creating the...