A solid security culture isn’t just a one-time course or an array of tools. It’s the way that people regularly make better choices when the leadership procedures, processes, and rewards influence them to take the necessary steps. Here’s a concrete plan you can follow and monitor at any level of your organization (startup to large).
What is the reason that the culture (not only tools) is a force for change
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Leaders own the risk. NIST’s Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 (CSF 2.0) elevated Govern to a core function–explicitly putting strategy, accountability, and risk appetite on the executive agenda, alongside Identify/Protect/Detect/Respond/Recover.
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Risks are always present and expensive. The FBI logged $16.6B in reported U.S. cybercrime losses in 2024 (up 33% year-over-year) including the phishing scam, BEC, and data exfiltration among the top complaints.
Internet Crime Complaint Center
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Culture reduces breach impact. IBM’s 2025 study puts the global average cost of a breach at $4.4M, noting faster detection/containment and security automation as key cost reducers.
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Modern breach patterns are behavioral. Verizon’s 2025 DBIR highlights growing third-party involvement and increased vulnerability exploitation–problems solved as much by process and norms as by tech.
The blueprint 7 pillars that make up an enduring security culture
1) Put Governance in plain English
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Write a single page security intent that includes Risk appetite top business risks who is responsible for what, and the escalation routes.
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Make sure you align to the NIST CSF 2.0 for shared language If you’re a smaller company begin by following your Small Business Quick Start guide.
2.) Create a safe environment for easy way to behave
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Security options that default to secure beats extraordinary Vigilance. Make sure you enforce MFA/passkeys, auto-patching secured managed devices and offline backups that are immutable so you can do the “right thing” is done with no extra clicks.
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The CISA’s Cyber Essentials summarizes these essentials into actions that can be used by leaders to “build an environment of cyber-readyness.”
3) Learn less, more often
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Change annual slide decks to 10-minute micro-lessons each month and quarterly drills based on role (finance: fraud on invoices Engineers Secrets management; executives: BEC).
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Utilize authentic artifacts (a disguised phishing message that which you received) and only one “Report Phish” method. CISA provides starter materials that to customize.
4.) Establish the security champions network
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Designate one champion for each department/squad. Offer them a monthly 60-minute meeting, with a preview change as well as a checklist (patch hygiene review, access reviews, secret scans).
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Publicly acknowledge them and spread the culture through friends.
5) Vendor & AI guardrails
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Time-boxed tokens with minimal scope for vendors; must include MFA as well as incident notification in contracts.
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To allow AI use, you must publish an uncomplicated policy that outlines which data can be used as well as who has the authority to approve tools as well as the access control to AI tools (IBM alerts you to the possibility of risk when AI isn’t governed and controlled).
6) Incident response you can run half-asleep
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A single-page IR card that identifies who has reported an event, when to is legal/PR, where to locate the playbooks and when to notify IC3. Tabletop is a tabletop once a year.
Internet Crime Complaint Center
7) Find out what is important (and display it)
Monitor outcomes and behavior Not just other metrics that are not useful:
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MFA-based coverage ( percent of apps/users using phishing-resistant methods)
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patch SLA ( percent of web-facing vulnerabilities repaired within the span of X days)
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Phishing resilience (report rate |, failure rate |)
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Backups (last test of successful restore, RTO)
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Management of devices ( percent managed and encrypted)
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The third party hygiene (vendors that have MFA or least privilege, breach notice clauses)
30 / 60 / 90 days rollout (with evidence points)
Days 0-30 — Kickoff & quick wins
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Create a single-page Security Intent and IR card. Create a channel #security-wins.
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Enforce MFA for admin, email and SSO; inventory external assets; turn to automatic patching.
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Take a 10 minute all-hands test on BEC/phish and 1-click analysis.
Success signal: MFA coverage >90 90%, first test of restore completed and the first phishing drill is scheduled for.
Days 31-60 — Normalize good habits
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Start each month a micro-training program and role-play drills and establish for the Champions network.
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Block access to vendors (scoped tokens and renew dates) and then publish an use of AI policies.
Success signal: Patch SLA met on the perimeter; champions within every team.
Days 61-90 — Prove resilience
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Tabletop a BEC/ransomware scenario to fix gaps in just hours not weeks.
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Create a basic CSF 2.0 Profile (current against. desired) to determine the priority of the this quarter’s tasks.
Success signal: IR tabletop completed; CSF profile agreed; quarterly roadmap is published.
Templates and scripts you can take
Slack/Teams kickoff post
Secure work is now the simple default. Today, we’re enabling passkeys/MFA as well as the one-click “Report Phish” button. If you spot something strange click Report, no blame and many gratitude. Security specialists on each team provide weekly 5-minute tips. Questions? #security-wins.
10 “Always Always” railings (post on the wiki)
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Always utilize SSO Never store secret information in documents or codes.
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Always confirm changes to your payment using the use of a known telephone number. Never allow wire changes to be approved via just email.
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Always label the customer’s data and never copy it into other AI tools without prior approval.
Security Champions chart (1 page)
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Time: 1 hr/month. Tasks: relay tips, look up patches and privileges Be the first line to ask “is the information an issue?” Swag + shout-outs are included.
Beware of these cultural killers
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“Security is the job of IT.” CSF 2.0’s “Govern” function is an executive obligation.
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Training is only for the year. Micro-learning and live drills help to build muscle memory and improve your endurance.
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Doing nothing to help vendors. DBIR shows third-party influence on the market is increasing. Treat vendor access just like access to prod.
Useful references
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The NIST CSF 2.0 (including the new function of Govern function) with quick-start guides to small-sized companies.
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CISA Cyber Essentials Steps for leadership to create a culture cyber-security.
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FBI IC3 (2024): loss trends and ways to report incidents.
Internet Crime Complaint Center
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IBM Cost of a Data Breach 2025 What reduces the cost of a breach (automation more rapid containment, AI Governance).
The takeaway
The culture is a system that includes decisions made by leaders that are safer, more consistent defaults, and even small, repetitive actions. Rely to NIST CSF 2.0 Adopt CISA’s core principles, practice your response to an incident and be honest in reporting. If you do that “security” will become the way your business operates, not an additional responsibility.
