#5MinSecurityRead Care and kindness- #security tools

• by Ellie Hurst
• Advent IM Blog

If there is one thing that has given me hope during this lockdown period, it has been the emergence of a more human face to business. I have attended a couple of webinars, spoken on some panels and read a lot of content and a great deal of human care and concern has been evident. I wanted to look briefly at this through a security lens as well as a pastoral one, whilst hopefully not minimising its intrinsic value.

Many people are now working from home, those who can of course and many more have been or are about to be furloughed. With this comes a whole new set of challenges and looking after each other has to come top of the list. It is hard to look after each other in isolation but platforms designed to bring people together have proven popular and invaluable, despite concerns about their security and  privacy. (We can talk about that in another post). However, the fact that they have flourished and proliferated should show us something very important; when people genuinely need something, security will often become much less of a consideration – their priorities and therefore their behaviour changes. As we enter deeper into the lockdown period, this is something we need to be very aware of; so much of security is about behaviour and right now, so much behaviour is naturally changing. We know that stress and fear can cause people to behave in risky ways, both personally and professionally and so with their wellbeing top of mind, you can also consider any impact to your organisational security too.

Where do the changes in behaviour become pertinent? Even voluntary changes to work patterns can lead to stress, we have known this for years. But enforced change leads to greater stress, potential resentment, emotional trauma and even personality change. A great number of people are all going through this at the same time, impacting entire households, who are also confined with each other. Financial stress from business closure, furlough or other pressures may also cause serious changes in behaviour. Political ideology is a powerful motivator and there is a huge amount of debate and restlessness around current events, not to mention theories that may add to the escalating fear that people are experiencing. Think about things like 5G masts being set alight, if you are a social media user, you cannot avoid this kind of content. All of these things are a powerful combination and recipe for some serious behavioural change. If we are not taking care of each other, changes in people can go under the radar and their difficulty or struggle may be unnoticed. This risks their health and the health of your organisation as they will probably have, or have access to company assets of all sorts; from devices to intellectual property. If you ever question the impact of behavioural change on security then you need only look at Edward Snowden, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with his actions. He has been described in a variety of ways but his opinion of himself has, interestingly never changed and he considers himself a patriot. Evidence perhaps that it is the observation and care we receive from others that can note and mitigate risks emerging from changes in ideology, attitude or behaviour, they are much less likely to be self-reported.

I believe that from the human need to connect and the will to take care of each other, we can also help protect businesses and hopefully ensure that the post- COVID 19 world emerges with care for each other as an integral part of security.