Employees over the age of 30 are more likely to adopt cyber security best practice than younger colleagues.
That’s according to a new report published by the security division of NTT, ‘Meeting the expectations of a new generation. How the under 30s expect new approaches to cybersecurity’, which also reveals that the younger generation is more anxious about cybersecurity and their company’s ability to tackle the number of security threats.
The findings, part of NTT’s Risk:Value 2019 report, scored across 17 key criteria. It found that, on average, under-30s score 2.3 in terms of cybersecurity best practice, compared to 3.0 for over-30s. In the UK, under-30s (4.3) and over-30s (5.5) are among the highest scores globally.
The data suggests that employees who have spent longer in the workplace gaining knowledge and skills and have acquired ‘digital DNA’ during that time, sometimes have an advantage over younger workers.
Overall, under-30s expect to be productive, flexible and agile at work using their own tools and devices, but half of respondents think responsibility for security rests solely with the IT department. This is 6 percent higher than respondents in the older age categories.
General attitudes to cybersecurity in the UK found that:
- Younger workers are risk takers, with over half (52 percent) saying they would consider paying a ransom demand to a hacker, compared to just 26% of over-30s
- Over half (58 percent) of under-30s believe their company does not have adequate skills and resources in-house to cope with the number of security threats. This compares to quarter (26 percent) of over-30s, and may be the result of growing up in a technology skills crisis
- Under-30s estimate that it would take around three months (97 days) to recover from a cybersecurity breach – six days more than the time estimated by older respondents
- 82 percent believe that cybersecurity should be a regular item on the boardroom agenda, compared to 90 percent of over-30s
- More accepting of new tools and devices at work, younger workers consider the Internet of Things (IoT) as more of a security risk (69 percent) than older colleagues (65 percent)
Azeem Aleem, VP Consulting (UK&I) Security, NTT, said: “It’s clear from our research that a multi-generational workforce leads to very different attitudes to cybersecurity. This is a challenge when organisations need to engage across all age groups, from the oldest employee to the youngest. With technology constantly evolving and workers wanting to bring in and use their own devices, apps and tools, business leaders must ensure that security is an enabler and not a barrier to a productive workplace.
“Our advice for managing security within a multi-generational workforce is to set expectations with young people and make security awareness training mandatory. Then execute this training to test your defences with all company employees involved in simulation exercises. Finally, team work is key. The corporate security team is not one person, but the whole company, so cultural change is important to get right.”
Adam Joinson, Professor of Information Systems, University of Bath, an expert on the intersection between technology and behaviour, said: “There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to cybersecurity. The insights from the NTT study demonstrate that treating all employees as posing the same risk, or having the same skills, is problematic for organisations. We do need to be careful not to assume that the under-30s simply don’t care so much about cybersecurity. While this may be true in some cases, in others it is more likely that existing security policies and practices don’t meet their expectations about ‘stuff just working’.
“If we want to harness the fantastic creativity and energy of younger workers, we need to think about security as something that enables their work, not something that blocks them from achieving their tasks. This is likely to mean security practitioners having to fundamentally rethink the way security policies operate, and finding ways to improve the fit between security and the tasks employees are required to undertake as part of their core work.”
NTT’s six cybersecurity best practice tips for a multi-generational workforce:
- Security culture must include all generations and be supported by a diverse range of employee champions, which includes age
- Build a panel of younger employees and listen to their views on cybersecurity
- Younger employees can be at their best and most motivated in an agile, productive, flexible workplace environment, where they are most likely to buy into the desired culture and behaviours. Security should be designed to enable the business
- Make cybersecurity everyone’s business. Security leaders should be approachable to employees, through one-to-one interaction and more formal company events
- Where skills shortages are most acute, support learning programmes, mentoring and consider external support
- Education is vital. Gamify security learning and make it fun for all
