Designing Security Awareness Programs

This unit guides students through planning, gaining approval for, and launching effective security awareness and phishing programs that align with organizational compliance and business goals. Students will learn stakeholder engagement, behavior-change techniques (including gamification), communications strategies, metric collection, and basic mobile security and culture considerations to prepare for implementation and continuous improvement.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze organizational compliance requirements, business objectives, and stakeholder inputs to define the scope, goals, and required approvals for a security awareness and phishing program.
• Apply behavior-change theories, gamification attributes, and communication tactics to design engagement plans that set realistic expectations and motivate secure user behaviors.
• Demonstrate techniques for interviewing stakeholders, courting influencers, partnering with other departments, and securing management support and resources for awareness initiatives.
• Evaluate program performance by collecting and interpreting Day 0 and ongoing engagement and phishing metrics, addressing business concerns, and recommending adjustments to improve outcomes and demonstrate value.