In move to address the “human side” of cybersecurity, Information Services Group (ISG), a global technology research and advisory firm, is partnering with cyberconIQ, a cybersecurity platform and advisory company, the companies announced in a prepared statement September 19.

Under the new partnership, ISG can offer its clients the capabilities of cyberconIQ’s Human Defense Platform, a SaaS-based solution that helps mitigate the human factors that create cyber risk, the companies said. Meanwhile, cyberconIQ can offer its customers access to the full range of ISG's cybersecurity services.

Strengthening Cybersecurity Culture

Doug Saylors, partner and co-leader of ISG Cybersecurity, explained why the partnership with cyberconIQ developed:

“People are one of the biggest risks to enterprise cybersecurity. Some 85% of breaches today involve human error, with breaches caused by phishing attempts up 25% in the last year alone. To combat this problem, enterprises need to strengthen their cybersecurity culture and help people become their own — and their employers’ — best protection against cyber threats.”

Saylors added the partnership with cyberconIQ will enable ISG to offer its clients a platform-based approach to identify individual risk styles among employees. It will also increase overall security awareness and actively monitor, measure, model and manage people-related cyber risk.

Cybersecurity Meets Psychology

To create a risk-aware and compliant culture, the the cyberconIQ offering includes its patented myQ Risk-Style Questionnaire, unIQue Security Awareness Education modules, cybermetrIQs Cyber Risk Dashboard, phishFixIQ Phishing Simulation and Remediation solution, and leaderIQ adaptive learning approach.

CyberconIQ’s CEO and founder Dr. James Norrie explained how the Human Defense Platform reduces people-related cyber risk by up to 95%:

“We are able to substantially reduce cyber risk by leveraging our CYBERology approach — the intersection of cybersecurity and psychology. We embed behavioral science methods targeting changes in on-the-job behavior into all of our cybersecurity solutions. Working together, our combination of technology and people-based approaches will help companies significantly improve their cyber defenses and risk awareness.”