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Gamification may help defeat cyber crooks

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Image: Stockfresh

9 April 2018

Gamification in the workplace is the key to beating cybercriminals at their own game, according to a new report.

Gamification, the concept of applying elements of ‘game playing’ to non-game activities, is growing in importance as a tool to help drive a higher performance cyber security organisation, said McAfee.

“Within organisations that hold gamification exercises, hackathons, red team-blue team or bug bounty programs are the most common, and almost all (96%) of those that use gamification in the workplace report seeing benefits,” the McAfee report said.

“In fact, respondents who report they are extremely satisfied with their jobs are most likely to work for an organisation that runs games or competitions multiple times per year.”

The report, commissioned by Vanson Bourne, surveyed 300 senior security managers and 650 security professionals in public and private sector organisations with 500 or more staff in the US, UK, Germany, France, Singapore, Australia and Japan.

More than half (57%) of these respondents reported that using games increases awareness and IT staff knowledge of how breaches can occur, with 77% of the senior managers agreeing that their organisation would be safer if they used more gamification.

Meanwhile, McAfee said the landscape for cyberthreats is growing, both in complexity and volume. Almost half (46%) of respondents believed that in the next year, they will either struggle to deal with the increase of cyber threats or that it will be impossible to defend against them.

Further complicating the dynamics of competition between security responder and cybercriminal is the security skills crisis, McAfee said. Respondents believed they need to increase their IT staff by 24% to manage the threats their organisations are currently facing while 84% admit it is difficult to attract talent. A further 31% say they do not do anything to attract new talent.

 

IDG News Service

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