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Thinking About Thinking: Exploring Bias in Cybersecurity With Insights From Cognitive Science

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
138 views13 pages

Thinking About Thinking: Exploring Bias in Cybersecurity With Insights From Cognitive Science

BIAS in CYBERSECURITY
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Whitepaper

Thinking About Thinking:


Exploring Bias in Cybersecurity
with Insights from Cognitive Science
Thinking About Thinking: Exploring Bias in
Cybersecurity with Insights from Cognitive Science

Table of Contents
Exploring Bias in Cybersecurity 3

The Psychology of Bias 3

6 Biases Skewing your Security Strategies 6

Aggregate Bias 6

Anchoring Bias 7

Availability Bias 8

Confirmation Bias 9

The Framing Effect 10

Fundamental Attribution Error 10

Overcoming Bias with Applied Insight 11

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Thinking About Thinking: Exploring Bias in
Cybersecurity with Insights from Cognitive Science

Exploring Bias in Cybersecurity


Imagine today’s news is full of the latest privacy breach executed by foreign hackers,
unleashing social security numbers to passwords for hundreds of thousands of
individuals. When evaluating new cybersecurity threats your company should
counter, these news reports could drive you or your leaders to focus on outside
attacks. But, if you dig deeper, you may find that these reports are really about
a different industry, and the biggest threat to your organization could be better
countered by focusing on the behavior of your own employees. Relying on what’s top
of mind is a common human decision-making tool, but can lead to faulty conclusions.
Our efforts to build
When situations are less than clear cut, our initial reactions and decisions can be
driven by unconscious biases like the “availability bias” described above. In Part
harmony between the
II of our series on cognitive science in cybersecurity, we’re taking a closer look at best characteristics
how human cognitive biases and reasoning errors impact decisions and business
outcomes in information security. Whereas Part I of this series, Exploring the Gray of humans and the
Space of Cybersecurity with Insights from Cognitive Science, discussed specific
strengths of human cognition and development that could be leveraged to help
best characteristics
technology deal with ambiguity, Part II draws attention to the predictable and, at of technology to
times, preventable errors linked to human susceptibility to cognitive bias.
tackle cybersecurity
By improving our understanding of biases, it becomes easier to identify and
mitigate the impact of flawed reasoning and decision-making conventions. Our
challenges depend
efforts to build harmony between the best characteristics of humans and the on understanding
best characteristics of technology to tackle cybersecurity challenges depend on
understanding and overcoming bias. and overcoming bias.

The Psychology of Bias


Bias is the tendency for people to favor one group, person, or thing over another,
while unfairly discriminating against the remainder of the choices. For better or
worse, bias is an inescapable feature of the human experience. We are shaped
by a combination of our environment, our genetics, and our cognitive ability to
process and make sense of our world. This means that our decisions, behaviors, and
experiences are influenced by the experiences of the past and the present.

To understand bias, it is helpful to categorize human thought into a framework,


called the Dual Process Theory. Dual Process Theory splits human cognition into
two modes:1

System 1 System 2
Intuition Reasoning

Automatic Effortful

Implicit Explicit

Fast Slow

Metaphorical Exact

1 For a full overview of Dual Processing Theory (System 1/System 2) and behavioral economics (including bias), refer to
the work of Daniel Kahneman (academic articles, or for an accessible book, refer to “Thinking, Fast & Slow”)

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Both System 1 and System 2 are required to keep humans running smoothly through
their lives. Just as our automatic processes allow us to tie our shoelaces without
thinking about it, our effortful processes allow us to systematically think through
various pros and cons associated with difficult career or financial decisions.

An exceptional human trait is that we are able to think about thinking, which
means that we have the ability to consciously switch from System 1 thinking
to System 2 thinking.

Take a look at Figure 1. On the top, the two horizontal lines look like they are different
lengths.2 On the bottom, the image appears to show equilateral triangles.3 System 1
is responsible for your initial perception; your ability to automatically use contextual
cues to estimate the sizes of objects, and your ability to “fill in the blanks” by
establishing patterns.
Image A

However, we can also engage System 2 when looking at these images. If you
measure the two horizontal lines from Image A, you’ll see and logically understand
that the lines are the same length, but this won’t necessarily stop you from
perceiving them as two different lengths. When you take a closer look at Image
B, you’ll notice that none of the shapes are actually triangles, but you will continue
to see triangles in the image. Ultimately, we are not able to block these perceptual
illusions from occurring. This is not a problem in situations where the illusion has no
impact on our performance, or on our decisions. However, when faced with a critical
decision, depending on faulty impressions or gut feelings can result in errors in
reasoning and poor decision-making.

The concept that people engage in different types of thinking is not new. The
System 1 and System 2 paradigm aligns with psychological theories that pre-date
our current knowledge of cognitive and neuropsychology. Sigmund Freud, for
instance, believed that all human behavior was driven by unconscious urges and Image B

that conscious, observable human behavior represented an extremely small fraction


Figure 1. Image A is a geometrical-optical illusion known as the Ponzo
of our individual identities. Freud believed that conscious reality, or the world that Illusion. Image B is the Kanizsa Triangle, demonstrating the concept of
modal completion.
we are actively aware of, makes up a very small piece of human existence. Rather,
our unconscious mind has a much larger impact over our experiences and our
behavior—even if we aren’t aware of what is occurring beneath the surface. While
Freudian theories may not be quite as popular as they once were, we do know that
people spend an overwhelming percentage of their life guided by and engaged in
automatic thinking.

People spend the vast majority of their life immersed in System 1 thinking because
brains are built for efficiency. Brains require approximately 20% of the human body’s
energy,4 even at rest, which creates a need to prioritize saving mental time and
energy over engaging in resource-heavy analytic thought. Psychologists often refer
to our natural inclination towards conserving mental energy as being “cognitive
misers.” Misers avoid spending their assets, and similarly, humans avoid spending
mental effort. The major difference is that financial misers conserve resources on
purpose, but cognitive misers conserve resources subconsciously. In most cases,

2 Ponzo illusion. Mario Ponzo, 1911.


3 Kanizsa Triangle Illusion. Gaetano Kanizsa, 1955.
4 Richardson, M. W. (2019). How much energy does the brain use? ([Link]
Function/Anatomy/2019/How-Much-Energy-Does-the-Brain-Use-020119)

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being a cognitive miser is an advantage. If we constantly analyzed each detail in


our environment, we would not have the energy to engage in higher-level System
2 executive functions such as impulse control, planning, and deliberate reasoning. Psychologists often
On the other hand, being a cognitive miser sometimes results in bias, or in making
incorrect decisions based on mental shortcuts called heuristics. refer to our natural
inclination towards
Consider the following question:5
conserving mental
Jack is looking at Anne, but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married, but
George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person? energy as being
a) Yes
“cognitive misers.”
b) No
c) Cannot be determined

Responses to this question vary, but up to 80% of respondents will select “C.”
However, the correct answer is A.

When taking a deeper look at the options, you can see that it does not matter
whether or not we know if Anne is married. If she isn’t married, then Jack, a married
person, is looking at Anne, an unmarried person. If she is married, then Anne, a
married person, is looking at George, an unmarried person.

Anne
Unmarried

Jack George
Married Unmarried

Anne
Married

Figure 2. Whether Anne is married or unmarried, among the group,


a married person is looking at an unmarried person.

Thinking through the possible options on marital status and directional gaze
takes more effort than quickly identifying that Anne does not have a marital
status. The missing information about Anne’s marital status quickly registers as
“missing information” for many readers, and the miserly mind connects the missing
information to the “cannot be determined” answer. If you answered this question
correctly, it is possible that due to the context of this paper you assumed that the
question would be tricky, and therefore engaged in purposeful critical thinking. Bias
lurks within System 1, as snap judgments, stereotyping, and rules of thumb allow
us to take shortcuts to conserve mental energy—just like the shortcut that many
readers made when answering the question above.

5 Hector Levasque, as cited by Keith Stanovich, “Rational and Irrational Thought: The thinking that IQ Tests Miss”

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Six Biases Skewing your


Security Strategies
Sometimes people are aware of the biases that they have. For instance, maybe
they are aware that they only read news written from one political viewpoint—even
though they know they’d have a more balanced perception of real-world events if
they diversified their news sources. However, in many situations people are unaware
of their own biases and how such biases impact their decisions and actions. This is
because biases dwell beneath the surface of our awareness as automatic thought
processes. Building awareness of cognitive biases can help us move beyond biased
decision making, and more importantly, help us avoid designing systems that
perpetuate our own biases in technology. To achieve this type of awareness, we have
to challenge ourselves to think about thinking. Thinking about, and understanding,
how we think and reason is especially beneficial when we identify situations where
bias is likely to have a significant negative impact on our choices or behaviors.

In cybersecurity, understanding and overcoming security-related perceptual


and decision-making biases is critical, as biases impact resource allocation and
threat analysis. The following represent a small subset of known decision-making Building awareness of
biases that are meaningful to cybersecurity professionals. They are described and
contextualized in an effort to raise awareness of how each bias functions, and how
cognitive biases can
biases can impact our understanding of the cyber landscape, our perception of risks, help us move beyond
and ultimately, our perceptions about each other.
biased decision
Aggregate Bias making, and more
Aggregate bias, or ecological inference fallacies, happens when we infer something
about an individual using data that describes trends for the broader population. This importantly, help
results in bias because information used to understand groups of people cannot be
assumed to be accurate at the individual level, as individuals often have many other
us avoid designing
confounding variables that impact their behavior. systems that
For example, older people are frequently characterized as riskier users based on their perpetuate our own
supposed lack of familiarity with new technologies. However, this characterization
is not necessarily true at the individual level. For example, recent studies show that
biases in technology.
older adults are less likely to share passwords than younger people. Approximately
35% of millennials (ages from the mid-20s to mid-30s) share passwords for
streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, with 19% of Generation X users sharing
passwords, and only 13% of Baby Boomers sharing passwords. While there may be
some differences in the prevalence of using streaming services across these age
groups, the younger generation’s willingness to share sensitive information, such as
passwords, is far riskier than older users’ habits.

This is especially important, as additional research shows that people frequently


reuse identical passwords across domains (up to 40%) and when considering partial
password reuse, the number jumps to 80-90%.6 This means that when a person
shares one password with a friend, for something as seemingly innocuous as a video
streaming service, the person may in fact be sharing their banking password.

6 [Link]
pass%E2%80%9D-nist%E2%80%99s-digital-identity-guidelines

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Thinking About Thinking: Exploring Bias in
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While it is not possible to know the actual rate of password reuse, especially for
cross-sectional domains such as streaming services versus banking services,
the willingness of younger adults to share their passwords at a much higher rate
illustrates a potential misconception about which users of technology are riskiest.
The trope of making sure our grandparents do not send money to a Nigerian prince
may be far less important to our overarching security than identifying ways to
decrease credential sharing among a younger generation that perceives account
details and privacy through a different (and seemingly more lenient) lens.

Aggregate bias can also impact security investigations, in which an analyst wrongly
focuses on an individual due to the individual’s group membership (e.g., highly
technical person with a lot of access) rather than the facts or forensic information
that accurately describes the individual and their behavior. Focusing on an individual
due to a misapplication of characteristics can prompt analysts to fish for answers
and reasons to support their assumptions, which can delay identification of the true Overcoming
source of security issues.
aggregate bias
Overcoming aggregate bias through understanding of individual human behavior through understanding
is critical to security solutions that want to address human error and/or human risk
factors in protecting data. To achieve this goal, and to move beyond attributing of individual human
or misattributing behavioral characteristics to individuals, advanced behavioral
analytics that allow for self-to-self, self-to-peer, and self-to-global comparisons can
behavior is critical
help provide context for understanding complex individual behaviors. to security solutions
Anchoring Bias
that want to address
Anchoring occurs when a person locks onto a specific salient feature or set of human error and/or
features of information early in the decision-making process. This frequently
occurs with numbers, such as in sales, when one party in a negotiation proposes a
human risk factors in
price point. Once a price point is set, the number serves as an anchor for additional protecting data.
negotiations (which may be too high, too low, or even accurate).

Anchoring is simple to demonstrate if you’re willing do a little experiment. Ask two


separate groups of people (say, five or six people per group) to estimate the number
of phishing attempts a large company copes with on a weekly basis.

 Ask the first group, how many phishing attempts do you think we get every
week, 3,000?

 Ask the second group, how many phishing attempts do you think we get every
week, 300,000?

You will likely find that the estimates for the group with the lower anchor (3,000) are
much lower than the estimates from the group with the higher anchor (300,000).
Of course, if your groups are comprised of people who deal with phishing in a
professional capacity, their answers may be anchored by their real-life experience!

At an individual level, anchoring influences cybersecurity when an analyst latches


on to a specific value during early phases of detection or investigation, and then
fails to move away from the preliminary “anchor” even when the solution to the
issue requires a complete deviation from the initial salient information point. When
analysts’ attention is drawn to a specific feature, they may miss or erroneously

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discount other influential information associated with the threat. At a broader level,
if a high-level person within an organization such as a CISO provides information
about potential threats or quantifies the potential impact of a threat, the CISO’s News cycles that
words prime and anchor employees lower on the organizational chart to focus
(sometimes incorrectly) on specific threats. focus on ransomware
or specific types of
Overcoming anchoring is particularly challenging, as awareness of the anchoring
phenomenon does not necessarily negate its effects. Recalculating estimates is not threats can influence
something that humans are particularly good at, especially when there are multiple
(or complex) factors at play. This is one specific type of bias where humans can, or analysts’ perceptions
should, depend more heavily on statistical analysis techniques that can decrease
of what is risky.
the impact of overly weighted early judgments in favor of balancing the impact of
new and critical information into their decision paradigm.

Availability Bias
Memory plays a large role in availability bias. The more frequently a person
encounters specific types of information, the more readily accessible the
information is in their memory. The availability of information, where certain types
of information are encountered more frequently, can impact how humans perceive
how likely an event is to occur (Figure 3).

In information security, news cycles that focus on ransomware or specific types


of threats can influence analysts’ perceptions of what’s risky and can influence Cow vs Shark
their approaches towards security. Hot topics that continuously rise to the top of
an analyst’s mind can be distracting and bias the diagnosis of system issues that
are deemed “less likely” simply because they are less available (i.e., less active) in
the analyst’s memory. At an organizational level, availability bias can influence the
allocation of resources and can lead to a misinterpretation of risk.

# of people killed by
Luckily, analysts are in the business of thoroughly exploring data. While they are, at
cows per year: 20
times, susceptible to overestimating the probability of an event occurring, their job
is to consistently challenge their reasoning strategies and to consistently seek the
unexpected. Organizationally, leadership—who may be more or less technical, and
more or less privy to in-depth information that analysts see on a daily basis­—is more # of people killed by
likely to be swayed by availability bias. This means that organizational cultures that sharks per year: 1
undervalue, or ignore, data that accurately represents the probability of specific
types of threat events may seek out or invest in solutions that are built to cope with
problems that carry very low likelihood of occurring. Figure 3. While shark attacks may garner more press coverage, cows
actually cause more deaths per year.

Understanding the probabilities in the information security threat landscape


requires working with our technology, and our data, to better and more accurately
represent the state of the threat world so that decisions are not made based on
news cycles that potentially inflate or misrepresent the probability of certain types
of threats. This means that coping with availability bias requires both humans
and technology. Humans are required to create an organizational culture and
communication strategy that values the expertise of security personnel. In addition,
technology can help provide more accurate probabilities of various types of threats.

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Thinking About Thinking: Exploring Bias in
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Confirmation Bias
In the age of big data, we can almost always find data to support our opinions and
ideas. It is often possible to support multiple theories regarding why an incident
occurred or what type of risk is present on a network. For example, if you had to
argue that the earth is flat, you could find plenty of information to support that claim
online. Alternatively, you can find plenty of information to support the claim that
the earth is round. When people have a theory to explore when trying to answer a
question or support their opinion, they are highly susceptible to confirming their
beliefs by searching for (and often finding) support for their hunch. Confirming
our own beliefs by searching for and building information around our arguments,
while excluding or deemphasizing opposing viewpoints, is called confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias not only affects our reasoning strategies, but it also impacts our
memory of information. People tend to focus on and remember information that
confirms or aligns with their beliefs, while discounting or forgetting information that
opposes their viewpoint.

Analysts, with the best of intentions, may find themselves spending a lot of time
looking for causes or issues associated with an adverse event by only searching
for causes or issues that align with their personal theories or insight. This is
particularly relevant for experienced analysts who may “decide” what happened
prior to investigating an event. Their expertise and experience, while extraordinarily
valuable, can be a weakness if they investigate incidents in a way that only supports
their existing belief.

Overcoming confirmation bias requires creative and flexible thinking—in particular,


the ability and willingness to look at a situation from different points of view. A
company that fosters relationships and teams that are comfortable with pushing
each other’s beliefs is critical. People, and technology, can facilitate mental
exercises such as thinking backwards, role playing, devil’s advocacy, and learning
from surprising events. 7

Facts Facts Supporting Personal Beliefs


Undervalued Personal Beliefs Hypothesis based
Ignored Overvalued on existing beliefs or
Forgotten Overemphasized ideas, susceptible to
Ingrained in bias and human error
Memory

Figure 4. People tend to focus on and remember information that


confirms or aligns with their beliefs, while discounting or forgetting
information that opposes their viewpoint.

7 For more information on mental toolkits and psychological factors associated with intelligence analysis, see Richards J.
Heuer, Jr. (1999). Psychology of Intelligence Analysis.

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The Framing Effect


Another factor that can impact how people make choices is how those choices are
worded. People typically prefer knowing that an outcome is a “sure thing” rather
than knowing that an outcome has a certain probability of occurring. For example,
if you ask someone whether they’d prefer a guaranteed $100, or a 15% chance of
getting $1,000, many people will choose the guaranteed $100.

While there are individual differences in how people answer this question (we’ve all
seen the game show participants who are willing to “risk it all” for one more chance
to win big), the “sure thing” is often perceived as the best option when it comes
Buyers of security
to choices associated with gains. When we think about what people choose, and
we’re talking about a positive outcome, people tend to make the less risky choice by solutions can
choosing the sure thing.
overcome the impact
But what happens when the decision, and the choices associated with the decision,
of framing effects
aren’t associated with something positive like winning money? What if the choices
are presented in a way that highlights a loss, or the chance for a loss? Let’s revisit by slowing down
the money question: would you rather definitely lose $100, or have a 15% chance of
losing $1,000? and thinking more
analytically about the
What we see (of course, not perfectly reversed due to those pesky individual
differences) is that people are more willing to take the probabilistic (riskier) option problems they are
when they are faced with a loss.
trying to solve, and the
Security problems are often aggressively worded, and use negative framing
suggested efficacy of
strategies to emphasize the potential for loss. This strategy prompts security
decision makers to, at times, invest in security solutions that are expensive (or the solutions offered.
overkill!) to address overly specific and low-probability risk factors. Consider the
vendor who promotes that “one out of five small companies never got their data
back after a ransomware attack!” The focus on the one company that didn’t get data
back versus the four that did over-emphasizes the risk for companies.

Companies are unlikely to abandon effective marketing strategies, especially


those that benefit from strategic message-framing techniques. However, buyers
of security solutions can overcome the impact of framing effects by slowing down
and thinking more analytically about the problems they are trying to solve, and the
suggested efficacy of the solutions offered. Framing effects are somewhat fragile,
and their impact depends on the one-sided nature of the phrasing of a question.
When a person knows that they need to pay attention to how questions are phrased,
they can overcome their initial knee-jerk reactions for making a choice—reactions
that could result in decisions that are far too risky, or far too conservative.

Fundamental Attribution Error


One of the most interesting social and psychological biases that impacts nearly
every aspect of human behavior is the fundamental attribution error. This is the
tendency to see other people’s failures or mistakes as part of their identity rather
than attributing the failure or mistake to contextual or environmental influences.
The most basic example of this type of error is when a person sees another person
trip. The observer may think, “Wow, what a clumsy person!” without realizing that
there were contextual factors at play, such as an uneven sidewalk. The other side of

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the fundamental attribution error is called the self-serving bias, where the individual
making the mistake places the “blame” on environmental or contextual factors
rather than internalizing the mistake as an internal trait.

Fundamental attribution error impacts multiple areas of cybersecurity. Security


analysts and software developers, for instance, often joke about PEBKAC (Problem
Exists Between Keyboard and Chair), and “id10t” users creating risks or having
issues with technology. Characterizing end users as less capable, less intelligent,
and prone to making mistakes out of laziness is a serious form of fundamental
attribution error. Shifting of blame in both directions, from IT and engineering to end
users, and from end users to IT and engineering, embodies the impact of this bi-
directional social bias. For people with high levels of technical expertise, self-serving
bias also emerges when they do not recognize their own risky behaviors—or even go
so far as to “excuse” their behavior due to their self-perceived technical knowledge
and abilities.

Coping with fundamental attribution errors, and the self-serving bias, requires
personal insight and empathy. It can be extraordinarily difficult to engage in
consistent self-assessment to determine when we may be placing blame on a
person rather than blame on environmental factors that impacted a person’s
behavior. It is also difficult to acknowledge when we are responsible, due to our own
shortcomings, for adverse events or outcomes. What we can do is practice empathy
and build our capacity for giving others the benefit of the doubt. For supervisors and
leaders, acknowledging imperfections/failures can help create a more resilient and
dynamic culture. For the people designing complex software architectures, consider
that your perspective is highly security focused—while your users’ motivations may
not be—and that their failures are not because they are stupid, but because
they’re human.

Blame for a Breach

IT blames “id10t users” Users blame “Unsecure IT”

Overcoming Bias with


Applied Insight
Coping with and overcoming bias whenever possible to facilitate better decision
making requires that we understand that answers fall somewhere in the middle,
within the gray space. Human weaknesses and cognitive shortcuts that result in bias
require us to foster a sense of intrinsic motivation to address bias, while requiring
us to turn towards one another and towards technology to minimize the impact of
predictable biases in the cybersecurity community.

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Of the biases outlined in this paper, several of them can be addressed directly
through the use of improved advanced analytics. The prime example is aggregate
bias. As we develop the capabilities to understand individual human behavior, rather
than group human behavior, we can get much better at applying policies, rules,
and constraints on those individuals who push the boundaries of risky behavior
or on those individuals who have the greatest negative security impacts on an
organization. The ability to do this, without the application of broad or inflexible rules
and restrictions generated for a specific group (say, for older adults or for engineers
who create and edit source code), can promote a more resilient workforce that is
able to work efficiently and effectively with fewer security-induced roadblocks.
Decreasing frustration and friction associated with security protocols is critical, and
by understanding individual behavior through advanced behavioral analytics, we are
getting closer to an adaptive security framework that benefits users, organizations,
and security professionals.

However, there are other biases that require a far more human approach or that do
not have an obvious technology-based strategy. One bias that requires human effort
is overcoming the impact of the fundamental attribution error. While organizations
can raise awareness of this phenomenon, individuals within an organization must
take on the responsibility for challenging their own assumptions about themselves
and about others. That said, when creating new technologies, use of design thinking
techniques and working towards integrating human-centered design methods
can help.

As a security professional, take a few moments to walk through the six biases
described in this paper:

1. Do you or your colleagues make assumptions about individuals but use group
characteristics to form your assumptions?

2. Have you ever been hung up on a forensic detail that you struggled to move
away from to identify a new path for exploration?

3. Has the recent news cycle swayed your company’s perception of


current risks?

4. When you run into the same problem over and over again, do you slow down
to think about other possible solutions or answers?

5. When offered new services and products, do you assess the risk (and your
risk tolerance) in a balanced way? From multiple perspectives?

6. And finally, does your team take steps to recognize your own responsibility
for errors or for engaging in risky behaviors, and give credit to others who
may have made an error due to environmental factors?

After taking the time to review our experiences, professional environment, and
decision-making habits, we’ll all likely find that some of these biases impact us,
our teams, or our companies more heavily than others. It’s critical, even in today’s
environment of never-ending alerts and dangers, that cybersecurity teams and
professionals slow down and think more deeply and strategically in order to combat
these biases. If not, we may find that biases are blinding us to the real threats.

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About the Author
Dr. Margaret Cunningham is a Principal Research Scientist for Human Behavior in
Forcepoint’s X-Labs. Her current passion is identifying critical interactions between
humans and technology through a socio-technical systems lens, with a goal of establishing
a better human-centric model for improving cybersecurity.

Previously, Margaret supported technology acquisition and integration, research and


development, and operational testing and evaluation for the Department of Homeland
Security, the U.S. Coast Guard, and other government clients. She also has experience in
the healthcare domain, particularly in building metrics that illustrate how integrating new
technologies can impact patient safety and care provider performance.

About Forcepoint
Forcepoint is transforming cybersecurity by focusing on what matters most: people’s behavior
as they interact with critical data and systems. This human-centric approach to cybersecurity
frees employees to innovate by understanding the normal rhythm of user behavior and the flow
of data in and out of an organization. Forcepoint behavior-based solutions adapt to risk in real
time and are delivered via a converged security platform to protect network users and cloud
access, prevent confidential data from leaving the corporate network, and eliminate breaches
caused by insiders. Based in Austin, Texas, Forcepoint protects the human point for thousands
of enterprise and government customers in more than 150 countries.

[Link]/contact

© 2019 Forcepoint. Forcepoint and the FORCEPOINT logo are trademarks of Forcepoint. All other trademarks
used in this document are the property of their respective owners.
[BIAS IN CYBERSECURITY-GLOBAL-REPORT-US-EN] 200079.052119

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