In this series we are exploring key aspects of our Information Security Awareness, Behavior, and Culture program. If you are a regular reader of this newsletter, you may have read our first article in this series entitled Inside ABC: Awareness, Behavior, and Culture. If you missed that one, you may want to read it first for a more general introduction to the ways we are working to help you keep yourself secure in both your professional and personal life. This month, we want to discuss this newsletter and our strategies for making it as useful as possible.
The SECURED newsletter is one channel through which the ABC program works to fulfill our big vision of fostering a holistic security culture in the WashU Community. “Security culture” and “security behavior” are really two sides of the same coin—culture refers to the symbols, values, and behaviors that we share as a community, that we learn from one another, and that we pass on to others. Currently, we’re focusing largely on the behaviors that help our community stay secure because we can assess whether our behaviors lead to better security outcomes. To promote security behaviors and culture in our community, we provide clear, conversational, useful, and original newsletter content about security issues that are impacting our community right now. We prioritize topics that have an actionable “takeaway” for our audience (all WashU faculty, staff, and students) so that our readers are more empowered to protect themselves. Over time, readers will learn how to anticipate these threats, detect scams and phishing attempts, and avoid common pitfalls that lead to big security problems for our community members and the university. Ultimately, we hope that you will share what you have learned with others at WashU and beyond—behavior isn’t culture until it is shared, after all.
We want the content we publish in our newsletter to be informed by the priorities and concerns of our audience. We invite your ideas for stories and guidance that will empower you to do the great work you are doing here at WashU without fear of interruption by cyber criminals. If you have ideas for topics you would like us to cover or you are interested in contributing to our newsletter as a guest author, please reach out to us at infosec@wustl.edu.