Strengthening security through security awareness
Security Awareness helps employees recognise security-related issues and understand how security policies apply in their day-to-day work. Its aim is to help them identify risks early, encourage secure behaviour, and reduce threats across the organisation over time.
What is Security Awareness?
At its core, Security Awareness helps employees recognise security-related issues and respond to them appropriately in their day-to-day work. It is not just about providing information or setting out rules, but about communicating content in a way that captures attention, is easy to understand, and has a lasting impact across the organisation. Through targeted communication and workshops, organisations can promote more security-conscious behaviour and help employees assess risks more effectively.
Why awareness is more about communication than control
One effective approach is based on principles from traditional marketing. Just as marketing helps build awareness of products and services, Security Marketing uses targeted messages, formats and initiatives to make security-related issues visible across the organisation and to emphasise the importance of security policies and procedures. Security Awareness is therefore created not through rules alone, but through communication that is clear, consistent and easy to recognise.
Organisations that trust 3-core
Organisations trust the 3-core to build Security Awareness effectively and embed it sustainably in day-to-day operations. Together with our clients, we develop tailored communication measures, campaigns and formats that raise awareness across the organisation and strengthen it for the long term.
How Security Awareness is built strategically
The document presents Security Awareness as an approach rooted in social marketing. Drawing on insights from psychology, sociology and communication studies, it is designed to influence behaviour in a targeted way. In practice, this means that content is not simply delivered, but developed in a way that encourages employees to act in a more risk-aware manner and adopt the desired behaviours in their day-to-day work.
A useful model in this context is the marketing mix, which structures Security Awareness around four key questions:
Product: Which behaviours should be strengthened in day-to-day work
In Security Awareness, the “product” is not a product in the traditional sense, but the behaviour organisations want to encourage among employees. The aim is to strengthen awareness of security-related issues and help employees recognise and assess risks more consciously in their day-to-day work.
Placement: How the content reaches employees
Security-related issues need to be communicated where employees will actually notice them in their day-to-day work. It is therefore essential to choose the right channels and formats to reach them effectively. Whether through internal communications, workshops, campaigns or digital content, the aim is to make Security Awareness visible and relevant rather than allowing it to remain in the background.
Promotion: How security is embedded consciously within the organisation
For awareness to have a real impact within the organisation, it needs to be communicated actively and reinforced on a regular basis. Clear messages, suitable formats and recognisable campaigns help make security-related issues easy to understand and keep them visible across the organisation. Over time, this helps to build a security culture that is not based solely on rules, but is genuinely reflected in day-to-day behaviour.
Leadership, training and campaigns as key success factors
Leadership plays a key role in developing an effective risk-aware culture. This is not only a matter of leading by example, but also of making security issues visible across the organisation and providing the necessary support to the functions responsible for them. Risk awareness therefore requires commitment, visibility and clear priorities.
Training and campaigns are particularly effective in establishing and strengthening Security Awareness. When employees are able to practise realistic threat scenarios, lasting behavioural change is far more likely than when security is communicated in purely theoretical terms. In this way, Security Awareness develops not only at the level of knowledge, but also in day-to-day behaviour.
Building Security Awareness effectively with 3-core
The 3-core supports organisations in building Security Awareness in a structured and practical way. This includes content, targeted communication measures, workshops, campaigns and formats that make security-related topics visible across the organisation and help embed them for the long term. We stand for Security Awareness that not only informs, but also changes behaviour and strengthens security culture.
