What is a Human Firewall? Examples, Strategies + Training Tips

What is a human firewall?

Human firewall meaning

A human firewall is a collective effort of individuals within an organization to protect against cybersecurity threats.

Human firewalls revolve around the basic principle that every employee plays a crucial role in safeguarding organizations from cyber attacks.

Why are human firewalls so vital to security?

Human firewalls play an essential role in defending organizations against cyber threats by turning employees into proactive defenders against security risks.

Humans are the single largest attack surface for organizations.

Most data breaches start with an employee error.

And the more of them you have, the greater the security risk.

Traditional security measures like technical firewalls and antivirus software can’t catch everything, so ensuring you have well-trained employees is critical.

Human firewalls are your last line of defense against cyber threats - with actively looking out for potential attacks or malicious emails and reporting anything that they consider dangerous.

Common misconceptions about human firewalls

"Human firewalls are only for cyber experts"

Contrary to popular belief, all individual employees are crucial in identifying threats.

An effective human firewall will encourage human vigilance across your entire organization.

"They’re only for catching phishing emails"

While phishing represents the largest attack vector for most organizations, human firewalls also protect against social engineering tactics, unauthorized access, and malicious software.

"Training should be done about once a year"

Annual sessions simply won't cut it.

Regular training and reinforcement is needed to build a strong human element against cyber security threats.

"Focus on employees who fall for phishing simulations"

A human-centric approach that encourages active participation through positive reinforcement is far more effective than fear-driven tactics.

"Human firewalls replace traditional cybersecurity measures"

Human vigilance is absolutely vital to defend against attacks.

But this doesn't mean you don't also need things like anti-virus software, firewalls, and encryption tools for a fully comprehensive cybersecurity posture.

What sort of threats should your human firewall protect against?

Cyber attackers exploit employees primarily through manipulation and deception, often using tactics like phishing and social engineering to trick individuals into revealing sensitive information or performing actions that compromise your company's security.

Common methods include:

• Phishing and spear phishing: Attackers send deceptive emails or messages to gain login credentials or other sensitive data.
• Impersonation attacks: Criminals pose as trusted contacts, such as executives, to deceive employees into transferring funds or sharing data.
• Social engineering: Manipulating employees into disclosing information by pretending to be an authority figure or coworker.
• Baiting: Offering a tempting download or freebie that installs malware when accessed.
• Vishing (voice phishing): Using phone calls to trick employees into revealing sensitive information.
• Malware-ridden attachments: Sending emails with malicious attachments that, when opened, install spyware or ransomware.
• Tailgating: Gaining physical access to secure areas by following authorized personnel.
• Pretexting: Pretending to need sensitive information under a false pretext, such as a fake IT request.
• Account takeover: Hijacking employee accounts to access company networks, posing serious risks for data theft and further phishing attempts.

‍

The role of employees in defending against security threats

Although humans may be your weakest link, they can also be your best asset when it comes to mitigating potential threats.

Mitigate human error: Human firewalls reduce risk by providing your employees with the knowledge and skills needed to recognize and avoid common cybersecurity threats, such as phishing emails and social engineering attacks.

Detect threats in real-time: While automated security tools can detect known threats, human firewalls will identify new or unique threats that might fly under the radar of traditional detection methods.

Stay adaptable: The threats landscape is always evolving... and there will always be new types of threats and phishing attacks to keep up with. A human firewalls will help you stay ahead of emerging threats by providing ongoing training, awareness programs, and threat intelligence updates to your employees.

Enhance your incident response: In the event of a cybersecurity incident, a solid human firewall strategy can significantly improve response efforts since employees will be (if your firewall is effective) prepared to follow established protocols, report incidents promptly, and take action.

Shift your culture towards security: Building a strong cybersecurity culture within your organization is essential for fostering a collective sense of responsibility and accountability for security. A human firewalls will help fuel this shift by promoting security awareness, encouraging best practices, and reinforcing the importance of cybersecurity.

‍

What are examples of acting as a human firewall?

• Reporting suspicious emails: Employees promptly flag emails that seem phishing-related to IT, strengthening threat detection.
• Creating strong passwords: Staff use unique, complex passwords and avoid reusing them across platforms.
• Avoiding unauthorized downloads: Employees download only approved software, reducing malware risk.
• Enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA): By using MFA on work-related accounts, employees add an extra layer of security beyond passwords.
• Maintaining security awareness: Regular training helps employees recognize new threats and act accordingly.
• Not using public Wi-Fi: Employees avoid accessing sensitive information on unsecured public networks to prevent unauthorized access.
• Locking devices: Workers lock computers and devices when not in use to protect data.
• Using secure file-sharing tools: Instead of email attachments, they use secure platforms for sharing sensitive documents.
• Updating software regularly: They ensure software, operating systems, and antivirus programs are updated to protect against vulnerabilities.
• Verifying payment requests: Employees double-check payment or wire transfer requests, especially when received via email, to prevent fraud.
• Separating work and personal devices: Employees keep work and personal devices separate to prevent cross-contamination of sensitive information.

‍

Why your organization's security culture matters

Your security culture sets the tone for how seriously employees take cybersecurity measures.

According to Tessian's survey, despite 99% of IT and security leaders agreeing that a strong security culture is important in maintaining a strong security posture, three-quarters of organizations experienced a security incident in the last year.

A strong security culture builds a sense of shared responsibility and vigilance that results in employees proactively identifying and mitigating potential attacks.

Criteria for gauging your security culture

Leadership buy-in

• Is security a priority and a core value of your organization?
• Do your employees believe that you take security seriously?
• Are there any internal policies that define your security culture?
• Do leaders visibly endorse security initiatives?
• Do you conduct regular reviews of your security culture? Are findings acted upon?
• Can employees access regular training sessions?
• Is there a process for reporting potential security incidents?

Internal communication

• Does your organization communicate security messages to employees (not just your security team)?
• Is there a process for employee feedback on your organization's security measures?
• Do all employees receive recognition for positively impacting security?

Cyber security awareness

• Are employees aware of their security responsibilities?
• Do you have a process for updating training in line with new threats and phishing attacks?
• Is security culture built into your training programmes?

How to identify strengths and weaknesses

Once you've assessed your security culture, you can then identify its strengths and weaknesses.

Look at factors such as employee engagement, compliance with security protocols, and responsiveness to security incidents.

Pinpoint any areas where your security culture could use improvement and develop targeted strategies to reinforce positive behaviors and address these vulnerability.

‍

Checklist: Establishing policies and procedures

Conduct a risk assessment

Start off with a thorough risk assessment to identify potential threats and vulnerabilities.

Make sure to factor in things like the type of data you handle and industry regulations.

Define policy objectives

Outline exactly what you're looking to achieve with your security policies and procedures...

What outcomes would you like to see?

Is it protecting sensitive data? Ensuring compliance with regulations?

Choose a framework that fits your specific needs

Go with a security framework that aligns with your organization's objectives.

Common frameworks include ISO 27001, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, and CIS Controls.

These frameworks will give you a structured approach to developing and implementing your policies and procedures.

Draft policies and procedures

Based on your risk assessment and policy objectives, draft your policies and procedures.

Policies: should outline high-level principles and expectations,

Procedures: should provide detailed instructions for implementing policies.

Make sure you cover key areas

Ensure that your security policies and procedures cover things like:

• Acceptable use practices

• Data handling procedures

• Incident response protocols

• Employee training requirements

Track and analysze impact

Monitor incidents: Establish a system to monitor and track security breaches, including near misses as well as actual breaches.

Analyze metrics and feedback: Regularly review metrics and feedback to evaluate the effectiveness of your security measures and identify areas that need improvement.

Provide feedback and recognition: Recognize and reward employees who consistently prioritize and demonstrate good security practices.

Communicate policies with employees

Once your policies and procedures are decided on, communicate them effectively to all employees and make sure you have training in place.

‍

What does human firewall training look like?

Can you build a human firewall with traditional security awareness training?

The short answer here, is no.

While security awareness training will cover variety of topics related to security best practices and organizational policies, learnings rarely stick with people for a long time.

Even when the training includes some practical exercises, like occasional phishing tests, it's still unlikely to result in behavior change...

And so human vulnerabilities will remain.

Modifying behavior is essential for building a strong human firewall because it is the only way to create a habit when people constantly watch out for potential breaches.

By all means, security awareness programs are still critical and irreplaceable.

But to strengthen participation in avoiding incidents, you need to adopt a more practical approach.

Focus on measurable behavior change

Effective human firewall training prioritizes real, measurable improvements in cybersecurity behavior.

For example, using Hoxhunt’s training, AES achieved a 526% increase in reporting rate, a 79% drop in failure rate, and a 58% reduction in miss rate.

And Finland’s biggest telecom company Elisa found that employees who had undergone our training were 20x less likely to click malicious links.

Use positive reinforcement

Behavioral change is most successful when reinforced with positive feedback.

Years of data tells us that scaring employees into compliance is ineffective.

Instead, employees are more likely to report suspicious activity if they receive rewards or recognition for correctly identifying phishing attempts.

Continuous reinforcement and repetition will turn behavior into habit.

Highlight when employees do the right thing or reach their goal with a reward or positive feedback.

If you give positive feedback to employees who correctly report simulated phishing attacks, they'll be more likely to report real attacks in the future.

Ensure training is actually engaging

Engagement is key in fostering a strong human firewall.

Without interesting, practical training, employees may not feel motivated to act on potential threats.

Personalizing training to each user’s skill level, language, and role increases relevance and engagement.

Incorporating gamification, like achievements and points, into training can make frequent simulations enjoyable and motivating, boosting cybersecurity behavior and vigilance.

Run training and simulations frequently

Quarterly phishing tests aren’t enough to reinforce knowledge.

At Hoxhunt, we recommend phishing simulations every 10 days to keep cybersecurity top of mind.

This frequency helps employees remember essential security practices and fosters an automatic habit of reporting.

Training frequency plays a significant role in its effectiveness. Consistent, regular phishing simulations are essential to drive lasting behavioral change.

When choosing a training vendor, prioritize one that delivers a high quantity of simulations annually, ensuring frequent engagement and familiarity with phishing threats.

The frequency of your training will have a direct impact on its effectiveness.

When shopping around for a vendor, look out for quantity of phishing simulations they deliver annually.

Consistent training and repetitive actions will drive real behavioral change over time.

‍

Challenges you might face (and how to overcome them)

‍

Does the human firewall provide 100% protection?

Just as email-filtering solutions do not provide 100% protection, your human firewall won't prevent every threat.

No matter how well trained your employees are, errors can always occur.

If a fraudulent email finds a person at the wrong time when they're tired after a long day, this can be enough for a successful phishing attack.

This doesn't mean that a human firewall isn't an absolutely necessary layer of security.

Counting on your employees to become dedicated to reporting is the best option you have when it comes to to strengthening your defenses.

At some point, your organization may be breached.

And if this does happen, the best thing you can do is to try to make bad actors' jobs harder by reinforcing the reporting skills of your employees and building a culture of security awareness where everyone is responsible for fighting back attacks.

‍

Measurably change behavior with Hoxhunt

Want to reduce human cyber risk?

Hoxhunt was built to provide individualized phishing training, automated security awareness training and advanced behavior change - all in one human risk management platform.

Maximize training outcomes by serving every user a personalized learning path that measurably changes behavior.

• Deliver interactive, bite-sized trainings that employees love.
• Automatically optimize training to employees' location, role and skill level. 
• Boost engagement through a gamified experience.
• Drive results with realistic phishing simulations drawn from millions of threat reports from our global network.

This is how Hoxhunt customers are able to strengthen their human firewall to achieve:

• 20x lower failure rates
• 90%+ engagement rates
• 75%+ detect rates

‍

Human firewall FAQ

What is a human firewall?

A human firewall is the concept of empowering employees to serve as a frontline defense against cyber threats by fostering a security-conscious culture and promoting best practices for cybersecurity awareness and behavior.

How can organizations build a human firewall?

Building a human firewall involves implementing strategies such as cybersecurity training and awareness programs, creating clear security policies and procedures, promoting a culture of security awareness, and providing ongoing support and reinforcement for security behaviors.

What does an human firewall look like?

Here are 6 characteristics of a strong human firewall

1. Vigilance: An effective human firewall is constantly alert and vigilant against threats such as phishing emails, social engineering attempts, and suspicious website links.
2. Knowledgeable: Employees in the human firewall are well-trained and knowledgeable about cybersecurity best practices, including how to identify phishing attempts, create strong passwords, and recognize potential security risks.
3. Proactive: Rather than waiting for threats to occur, the human firewall takes proactive measures to prevent cyber attacks by reporting suspicious activities and adhering to security protocols.
4. Resilient: Even in the face of sophisticated attack methods, an effective human firewall remains resilient and adaptive, quickly responding to emerging threats and mitigating potential risks to your organization's security posture.
5. Compliant: Members of the human firewall understand and adhere to relevant cybersecurity policies, regulations, and compliance requirements to ensure the organization's data and systems remain secure and compliant with industry standards.
6. Continuous improvement: An effective human firewall is committed to continuous improvement, regularly participating in training sessions and staying updated on the latest security technologies and practices.

How can organizations measure the effectiveness of their human firewall?

Effectiveness of a human firewall can be measured through metrics such as the frequency of security incidents, employee participation and engagement in training programs, success rates in identifying and reporting phishing attempts, and overall improvement in security awareness and behavior across the organization.

‍

Sources

• Security Cultures Report 2022 – Tessian
• CyberEdge 2022 Cyberthreat Defense Report – CyberEdge
• Human Error in Data Breaches – InfoSec Institute