A CISO's Guide to CyberSecurity Culture

Editor’s note:
As cybersecurity culture conversations mature — and as AI, human risk, and organizational resilience become inseparable — this guide has been updated to reflect a more systems-level view of culture, risk, and leadership responsibility.

The Odyssey of Cybersecurity Culture

Updated for modern cybersecurity culture, organizational risk culture, and human risk management in an AI-enabled world.

Cybersecurity used to be a niche pursuit. Now it’s woven into every part of how organizations operate — from clinical trials to payroll runs to product launches. If you’re a CISO, you’re navigating a landscape that looks less like a tidy network diagram and more like an odyssey: a maze of human behavior, unknown threats, and tradeoffs that don’t come with a map. The danger isn’t always obvious, the journey doesn’t have a fixed end, and the path forward requires judgment, leadership, and an ability to read the terrain as it shifts — especially when humans are doing human things under pressure.

We’re at an inflection point. The story is no longer “more tech equals more security.” The story is how technology, culture, incentives, and real-world behavior interact — and how that interaction becomes risk or resilience.

(If you want the deeper foundation and the language cleanup the industry desperately needs, start with our pillar: Security Culture vs Risk Culture: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How It Actually Works.)

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The Human Core in a Digital Landscape

Historically, cybersecurity focused on technical controls and infrastructure — firewalls, endpoint agents, identity, segmentation, detections. Necessary. But incomplete.

Because behind every configuration and every control is a human being: choosing, rushing, interpreting, bypassing, escalating (or not). Humans build the tech, run the tech, maintain the tech — and now, in an AI transformation, humans are also teaching the tech how to behave.

That’s why cybersecurity culture is no longer a soft side topic. It’s a practical lever for risk reduction, operational resilience, and governance.

What is Cybersecurity Culture?

Cybersecurity culture (also called security culture or cyber culture) is not a poster campaign or an annual training module.

It’s the set of shared assumptions and norms that shape:

• what “normal” looks like around security,

• how people behave under pressure,

• whether risks are surfaced early or hidden,

• and whether secure ways of working are realistic — or routinely bypassed.

In other words: culture is how security actually happens when no one is watching.

A strong cybersecurity culture helps security become second nature because the system supports it. A weak culture forces people into workarounds — and then blames them for taking the only route that works.

Cybersecurity culture isn’t compliance

Compliance tells you whether boxes were checked. Culture tells you whether the organization can be trusted to behave safely when conditions aren’t ideal.

And conditions are almost never ideal.

The often-overlooked dimension is that of organizational culture.

The challenge presented about applying this dimension to current cybersecurity challenges is that this cultural aspect has historically been sidelined. Cyber initiatives have primarily targeted immediate vulnerabilities, of which there are many but at the expense of neglecting long-term human behaviors that could either be an organization's weakest link or its strongest shield.

Cybersecurity is a $300B industry, and yet by research estimates, only 2% of that spending is dedicated to employee training, awareness, or culture initiatives.

Yet, there's a shift on the horizon. Progressive organizations now realize that a robust cybersecurity strategy requires balancing the technical with the human. By understanding the differences and leveraging the cultural underpinnings, we can architect not only fortified systems but also resilient human networks ready to face the evolving cyber landscape.

Rethinking the Human Element: From Firewalls to Facilitators

The language we use shapes the strategy we build.

For years, cybersecurity has leaned on metaphors like “human firewall” and the idea that people are the last line of defense. We don’t buy it.

Framing employees as the problem creates predictable outcomes:

• people disengage,

• reporting drops,

• mistakes get hidden,

• and security becomes something done to people, not with them.

Humans don’t inherently “harbor” risk. Risk emerges from the situations we place people in — mismatched tooling, unclear rules, delivery pressure, friction-filled processes, incentives that reward speed over safety.

The goal isn’t to burden people with impossible expectations. The goal is to build a culture where people become facilitators of security — supported by usable systems, clear norms, and leadership signals that make the secure path the realistic path.

The Myth of "Awareness Equals Culture"

This is one of the biggest maturity hurdles in human risk management.

Cybersecurity awareness is education: knowledge of threats, basic practices, and what “good” looks like.

Cybersecurity culture is deeper: the behavioral reality of whether people can and will do the right thing in context.

As any academic would tell you, understanding a theory doesn’t automatically translate to real-world behavior. And in a world of constant change — cloud sprawl, SaaS sprawl, remote work, generative AI, deepfakes — most employees are trying to keep up without drowning.

So yes, awareness matters.

But if you want behavior under pressure, you need culture.

A resilient cyber culture is one where:

• people feel safe raising risks,

• friction points are surfaced and removed,

• secure ways of working are built into workflows,

• and the purpose of security is embraced, not resented.

If you want the clean translation between security culture and organizational risk culture, read the pillar above — it’s where most organizations get lost.

From Understanding to Action: Questions CISOs Should Ask

Tools and technology can be updated continuously. Human behavior doesn’t change that way.

Culture work is slower — and more durable.

If you want to build a cybersecurity culture strategy (not just a training plan), start with a few grounded questions.

1) Where does our organization stand today?

Before you design interventions, you need a baseline: your current security behaviors, norms, friction points, and where risk concentrates.

Look at:

• incident reporting patterns,

• exception rates,

• repeated workarounds,

• near-miss frequency,

• and what your people say when you ask what makes “doing security” hard.

2) Who are our allies across the business?

Security culture is cross-functional by nature. Your allies often include:

• HR and People teams (values, incentives, performance systems)

• Risk / GRC (governance, assurance, audit language)

• IT and Engineering (workflow realities)

• Comms / L&D (how change lands)

3) Where can we source human expertise?

If your team is heavy on controls and light on behavior science, that’s normal. Culture requires additional lenses: psychology, organizational anthropology, change design.

4) How will we measure cultural change without reducing it to one score?

You’ll need a culture assessment / security culture survey to understand groups, subgroups, norms, and differences. Then you’ll need real-time indicators (response times, handoffs, escalation patterns, silence/non-engagement) to see culture in motion.

Understand the Overall Organizational Culture (The “DNA” Layer)

Every organization has a cultural DNA: values, operating norms, decision style, and relationship to uncertainty.

That DNA shapes how people respond to:

• rules,

• risk,

• ambiguity,

• and pressure.

Culture isn’t just what people say they believe. It’s what the system teaches them is safe, rewarded, and realistic.

When CISOs ignore the broader organizational culture, cyber programs often feel “bolted on.” When CISOs work with it — and sometimes gently challenge it — secure behavior becomes easier to sustain.

Map and Build the Cyber Culture Strategy

A strong cyber culture strategy isn’t a checklist. It’s a roadmap.

Start by mapping:

• your current security behaviors and pain points,

• how work actually gets done (not how policy says it’s done),

• and how leadership signals and incentives shape frontline actions.

This is where the difference between security culture and risk culture becomes operational.

A practical starting point is a Human Baseline Assessment or culture audit, combining:

• survey-based diagnostics (the shape of culture), and

• operational signals (culture in motion).

From there, your strategy becomes a set of targeted interventions — not generic training.

Considerations for Building a Cyber Culture Program (That Actually Changes Behavior)

Cyber culture change goes beyond campaigns, posters, and generic modules. It requires designing for what motivates people and what makes secure behavior realistic.

Key considerations:

Deep Motivation: Merely imparting information isn't enough. Understand your employees and what drives them. Consider blending awareness with emotion—whether through humor, empathy, or innovation—to truly make an impact.

Resource Allocation: An effective program demands dedication. Allocate resources to understanding the intricate relationships between culture, training, awareness, and change. Establish a pre-planning strategy, identify goals, and assemble a dedicated team.

Continuous Engagement: A one-time training isn't sufficient. Design an ongoing plan addressing various risk levels and competencies, presented in a manner that appeals to your employees.

Understand Your Audiences: It's essential to comprehend the intricacies of your organizational culture. Consider using constructs like our "Digital Tribes" to decipher the intricate web of cultural attributes, values, habits, and behaviors. This "bottom-up" approach ensures a tailored strategy for varied employee groups.

Move Beyond One-Sized Training: While delivering one module a year for compliance might seem practical, it's an overly simplistic approach. Even role-based training is a great step, the goal in mapping the program is to seek granularity; and understand that roles and risks often overlap and intermingle.

Audience-Centric Approach: Instead of a "one size fits all" mentality, dive deeper. Recognize the uniqueness of each department, group, or team. For example, customer service might include a group with varied roles from HR to frontline representatives; understanding these intricacies helps tailor the program.

In essence, building a cyberculture program is an intricate endeavor. It's not about the generic or the general but the specific and tailored.

Investing time, resources, and thought into understanding your organization will pave the way for a more resilient and informed workforce.

Integrate With Your Unique Organizational DNA

If you’re hearing “culture” more often in board-level cyber risk conversations, you’re not alone.

Boards are increasingly asking questions that sound like:

• “How do we know people would do the right thing under pressure?”

• “Are we confident in our cyber resilience?”

• “Is our culture helping or undermining our controls?”

And the honest answer is: you don’t get there with awareness alone.

You get there by treating cybersecurity culture as a system: diagnostics → targeted change → measurement → iteration.

At Cybermaniacs, we help CISOs map the culture layers that drive human risk, design programs that fit the reality of work, and build evidence that change is actually happening. For more reading on culture, try our blog on Security Culture & Risk Culture,  or How Culture works as a system for change.  

FAQs (Cybersecurity Culture)

What is cybersecurity culture?
Cybersecurity culture is the set of shared norms and behaviors that determine how people actually handle security risks in day-to-day work — especially under pressure.

Is cybersecurity awareness the same as cybersecurity culture?
No. Awareness is education. Culture is the behavioral reality of what happens in context.

How do CISOs measure cybersecurity culture?
Start with a culture assessment / security culture survey to see patterns and subcultures, then layer in operational indicators like escalation, response times, handoffs, and reporting behavior.

How does AI change cybersecurity culture?
AI amplifies culture. It affects how people trust systems, challenge outputs, escalate issues, and manage human-in-the-loop risk — which makes culture and leadership signals even more important.