From Standard Engagement Metrics to Human Risk Management: EAB Global and Living Security

“Unify correlates data about risky behaviors in one place so I could learn things that I hadn’t known before. I could see who was getting targeted the most with phishing messages—by individuals, roles, and business units. Previously, to see this level of information, I would have to go into Workday and Microsoft O365 and pull that together manually, but with Unify it’s built in.”

The Client: EAB Global

EAB Global drives transformative change for educational entities through data-driven insights and best-in-class capabilities in five major areas: enrollment, student success, data and analytics, institutional strategy, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I).

As the leader of the security organization, it was Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Brian Markham’s priority to close gaps and minimize risks across the company.

The Challenge: Move from measuring engagement to changing behavior

A cybersecurity executive for over 20 years, Brian kept coming back to the same goal: his organization could be doing more to identify and act on potential risks. He wanted to understand risky behaviors as they happened to unlock the possibility of enabling preemptive vigilance. However, the industry norm of check-the-box engagement metrics weren’t enough. His team needed to up-level their data.

“For me the catalyst was wanting to level up. In the past, we would look at things like, did people open emails? Did people show up to awareness sessions? Did people do the online training? We would look at those numbers, and if they went up, we were happy,” said Brian. “As I matured as a leader and learned more, I realized that that’s not really enough. It’s not so much the engagement there that I want; it’s really the behavior change that I want.” 

The Solution: Using Data for Real-time Insights

Brian sought real-time data on his users’ behaviors in order to engage and drive desired behaviors and mitigate risks. After considering multiple solutions, Brian decided to pilot Living Security’s Unify Insights.

Unify Insights centralized and correlated EAB’s data to monitor changes, find trends, and make decisions that would impact EAB’s security culture and posture. With Living Security’s data management solutions, Brian and his team could dive into the data they already had to understand their security landscape more insightfully and efficiently, without manually sifting through mountains of data.

Result: Empowering Humans to be EAB's Best Defense

Unify Insights brought Brian and the EAB team the visibility to guide human behavior in a way that empowered people rather than punished them. It gave them the ability to learn, adapt, and, in his words, “figure out the best tactics, techniques, and approaches to help make us all more successful.”

Brian matured from a Security Awareness and Training approach to a Human Risk Management approach. By bringing in the right data and solutions, he and his team could get ahead of potential risks and make improvements to how they interact with their employees.

By leveraging the insights from Unify, Brian and his team could spend more time understanding risks, coaching their colleagues to build better security hygiene habits, and moderating security processes to maintain a lower risk posture.

“Unify opened up a universe of possibilities,” said Brian. “It gave me the power to see where I had gaps, and [in] understanding how to use that data, I also got the ability to change behaviors in a user-friendly way.”

Unify Insights gave Brian and EAB Global the key to managing human risk in their ever-evolving security landscape.