How to Talk About Cybersecurity Risk Across Disciplines and Departments

Published on December 8, 2021  |  Cyberfort Advisors
talk about cybersecurity

Your IT departments and professionals have a unique challenge: figuring out how to talk about cybersecurity risk across disciplines and departments.

While interdepartmental discussions and collaboration are necessary parts of the operation of every successful business, cybersecurity and other IT-based concerns are unique in that all of your departments and employees have to be kept in the loop and educated on the latest changes. This often creates misunderstanding and miscommunication – your payroll department doesn’t have to understand how the marketing team works, and vice versa. There are years of experience in those departments and hundreds of insights that never need to be shared across an entire company. But with cybersecurity risk, it’s everyone’s job to pay attention and to be aware of best practices every day.

Here are some tips on how to talk about cybersecurity across professional disciplines and departments.

Talking Cybersecurity with C-Suite and Board of Directors

The heads of your business have a lot on their plates and understanding cybersecurity risks and programs should not be forgotten. CISO Mag shared the top five ways to talk cybersecurity with your business’s C-Suite and Board, and many of them center around the ways to incorporate C-Suite language and logic into your presentations and discussions about cybersecurity.

Risk management is a big part of the business leadership experience and creating dialogue that makes cybersecurity part of the broader risk management discussion is a great way to integrate IT best practices and insights into more regular discussion.

You can also talk about program maturity. Maturity models are often important tools for your leaders. It’s important to note, however, that you make clear distinctions between maturity measurements and performance measurements. CISO Mag shares a great example in their article about password policies. Maturity metrics for this would include and measure the actions taken to establish and communicate these password policies – it’s about education and implementation. On the other hand, performance metrics are more incident- and numbers-based: how many incidents did you have involving weak or compromised passwords in the last month, quarter, or year?

Have an IT Expert Available to Talk About Cybersecurity

Another way to break down barriers between IT concerns and non-IT employees is to designate a member of your staff to help answer questions and educate IT laypeople on the importance of the latest protocols or threats that are circulating.

Whether this is a chat line that you set up or a forum you create on your company intranet where people can go to find policies, Q and A discussions, and how-tos, your employees don’t work in a vacuum. And no one retains 100% of what they learn. That’s why having a person or a place full of resources is a great way to bridge gaps in cybersecurity understanding.

Invest in Training

There’s a reason why people who lead by example can help create momentum for innovation and change. When you are showing others how to do something, and then giving them a chance to learn how to do it themselves, they become more invested in the learning process.

Another great opportunity for your IT professional sot bridge communications gaps is to hold training sessions. Whether you dedicate certain days, hours, or resources for your employees to take online or web-based courses, or you schedule “Lunch and Learn” sessions periodically, continuing education is a great way to keep people sharp and thinking about cybersecurity risks and best practices.

It’s Time to Act

If you want to talk about cybersecurity with your employees, you also have to talk about email vulnerabilities. Email is the number one fault point for phishing, ransomware, and other cybersecurity risks. It takes your employees’ skills and your network’s security programs and protocols to protect your business. And that’s where CyberFort Advisors comes in.

CyberFort’s Email and Web Security will be at the forefront of your cybersecurity program, stopping threats before they can take hold by employing the best tools:

  • Email Security and encryption
  • web browsing and content security
  • web application firewall
  • IoT security, security awareness

Contact us today to get a free network threat assessment.