Building a Culture of Cybersecurity Awareness

By Calli Schlientz, Director of Compliance, DataBank

As Cybersecurity Awareness Month wraps up, it’s worth asking: Why is building effective cybersecurity so difficult for so many organizations? The answer usually isn’t technical. It’s cultural.

Too many organizations view their security and compliance teams as the “department of no,” the people who exist to tell everyone what can’t be done and why their preferred approach won’t work. This adversarial mindset creates exactly what it aims to prevent. When teams see security as an obstacle rather than a partner, they work around it, avoid conversations until it’s too late, and treat compliance as a burden rather than a useful framework.

The path forward requires integrating security into conversations from the beginning and moving from prohibition to collaboration. When security teams ask, “How can we make this work securely?” instead of simply saying “no,” organizations build stronger defenses while maintaining operational efficiency. This cultural shift improves security outcomes, business agility, and customer confidence simultaneously.

It All Starts with Leadership

Consider how you build a physical structure. Before construction begins, architects and engineers calculate load requirements, soil conditions, and structural integrity. Nobody questions whether foundation planning belongs in early conversations. The same principle applies to cybersecurity infrastructure.

Leadership makes this happen through visible participation, not mandates:

• When executives complete security awareness training in the first week it’s available, completion rates across the organization increase dramatically
• When senior leaders report phishing attempts using the same channels employees use, it normalizes the behavior
• When project sponsors proactively request security architecture reviews, teams understand these aren’t bureaucratic obstacles but standard practice

People follow actions far more reliably than words. Leadership visibility transforms security from a requirement into an expectation.

From Policy to Practice: Making Documentation Useful

Most organizations have comprehensive information security policies that few employees have actually read. This isn’t a failure of discipline. It’s a failure of approach.

A 200-page security policy serves no practical purpose if people don’t know how to extract relevant information when they need it. The solution is teaching employees to treat security policies like reference tools they consult when needed, not documents they memorize. Show them how to use search functions effectively, understand how the document is organized, and locate specific guidance quickly.

Test whether your policies actually work as reference tools by creating quizzes that require employees to find information rather than recall it from memory. When people struggle, you’ve identified either a training gap or a documentation problem that needs fixing.

The security policy should answer questions, not create them. If employees can’t find guidance when they need it, even the most comprehensive or technically accurate policy has failed its purpose.

Compliance as Catalyst, Not Constraint

Compliance frameworks like SOC 2, FedRAMP, ISO, and PCI-DSS often get treated as burdens when they’re actually roadmaps that tell you exactly what needs protection and how to protect it.

Rather than viewing these as obstacles to overcome, use them as structured guides for building security practices. When frameworks mandate specific controls for patching, monitoring, or access management, they’re identifying security measures that actually matter based on industry experience and established risk patterns, not creating arbitrary work.

The key is integrating these requirements into planning conversations from the beginning. If you know FedRAMP compliance will eventually be required, design systems with those controls built in rather than retrofitting them later. When security and compliance participate in initial architecture discussions, evidence collection happens automatically throughout the year instead of becoming a scramble during audit season. This creates shared responsibility where everyone understands their role because they helped design processes from the start.

Frameworks and processes establish what needs to happen. Making it actually happen requires the human side of security.

Practical Best Practices for Building Security Culture

Building lasting security awareness requires three interconnected practices: helping people understand what they’re protecting, rewarding positive behavior, and creating safe reporting channels.

Start with the “why” behind security requirements. When employees understand that their actions protect customer data, intellectual property, or operational systems, they ask better questions and challenge processes that seem to bypass security controls. This isn’t a one-time training module but an ongoing conversation that evolves as systems change and new workflows emerge.

Reward people who identify security gaps or report potential issues. When someone flags a phishing email, acknowledge it publicly. When a team proactively requests a security review, recognize that initiative. Even when someone reports their own mistake that created a vulnerability, reward the transparency. Positive reinforcement encourages people to report problems rather than hide them.

Create environments where reporting feels safe by removing reprimand culture for honest mistakes. If employees fear consequences for admitting errors, security gaps stay hidden until they become incidents. The person who reports “I think I clicked a phishing link” deserves thanks for early warning, not punishment.

When Security Culture Becomes Customer-Facing

Internal security culture directly impacts customer relationships. When employees understand security principles and processes, they have better conversations with customers about protection, compliance, and risk management.

Sales teams educated in security fundamentals know when to involve specialists in customer discussions, creating comfort for customers to ask difficult questions about data protection, incident response, and compliance certifications. This proactive approach demonstrates that security isn’t an afterthought addressed when problems arise.

Transparency builds trust. Resources like trust centers that document security practices, compliance certifications, and privacy commitments give prospects detailed information without requiring custom responses for each inquiry. Security culture becomes a competitive advantage when customers see it reflected in every interaction, from initial sales conversations through ongoing service delivery.

Where to Begin

If you can only implement one security culture initiative, start with consistent micro-learning. Weekly security tips delivered via Slack, email, or team meetings work better than quarterly training marathons that nobody remembers.

Keep messages short and practical—badge security one week, phishing identification the next, password management the following week. Small, regular touchpoints build awareness over time without overwhelming people or disrupting workflows.

Make leadership participation visible. When executives complete training promptly, report suspicious emails, and request security reviews for their own projects, it signals organizational priority more effectively than any policy mandate.

Security awareness isn’t a destination you reach through annual training. It’s a culture you build through consistent, practical, positive reinforcement that makes security everyone’s responsibility, not just the security team’s job.