Cybersecurity Adoption and Awareness

People and organizations often fail to adopt and effectively use best practices and technologies for a variety of reasons, including poor awareness, lack of knowledge/skill, and personal biases. We are conducting research to better understand cybersecurity adoption factors and the role of cybersecurity advocates (security professionals who promote and educate people about security best practices) in facilitating adoption.

Current/recent projects:

• Security advocacy - understanding the skills, characteristics, and professional motivations of cybersecurity advocates
• Security awareness program case study – extended prior work on cybersecurity advocacy to conduct an in-depth case study of advocacy in practice at a federal agency to identify cybersecurity advocate professional attributes and effective advocacy techniques
• Federal security awareness program study - exploring the needs, challenges, practices, and professional competencies of federal security awareness teams and programs to inform resources for federal security awareness professionals