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The Unaddressed Gap in Cybersecurity: Human Performance
Article

The Unaddressed Gap in Cybersecurity: Human Performance

Stephen A. Wilson, Dean Hamilton and Scott Stallbaum
MIT Sloan Management Review, 2020
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Comprehensive
  • Analytical
  • Well Structured

Recommendation

Cybersecurity breaches cost companies millions of dollars each year, forcing many firms to consider increasing investment in security technology. Stephen Wilson, Dean Hamilton and Scott Stallbaum point instead to gaps in human performance as the root cause of many of these failures. Corporate leaders should establish high-reliability cybersecurity operations (HRCOs) to embed disciplined behaviors and hypervigilance into the corporate culture to address the human performance gap prevalent in many businesses.

Summary

Firms are looking to increase investment in security technology to counter costly cybersecurity failures.

Every year, companies fall victim to cybercrime. As security breaches become more costly, companies turn to advanced technology; yet in many breaches, human error leads to the breakdown in security. In 2015, for example, cybercriminals accessed 80 million customer records from health insurer Anthem after an employee fell for a phishing scam. In 2019, hackers broke through a misconfigured firewall at bank holding company Capital One and obtained 106 million customer records.

While engaging new security technology...

About the Authors

Stephen A. Wilson is cofounder and managing partner at consulting firm Wilson Perumal & Company where Dean Hamilton is chief technology officer and partner, and Scott Stallbaum is a manager.

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