Revolutionizing Employee Security with Cosmo

Three-quarters of cybersecurity incidents involve a human element, yet most of the current efforts in cybersecurity are focused on technology. We designed a security companion that utilizes threat intelligence to provide just-in-time intervention to gently nudge employees away from risky actions.

Cosmo the Cybersecurity Companion

Cosmo the Cybersecurity Companion

Cosmo is an ingenious and delightful work companion leveraging intelligence, just-in-time training, and data collection to support employees’ cybersecurity during daily work activities on their desktops.

Our original problem statement

How can Cisco innovate to empower security workers?

Current Effort

One approach Cisco has considered is to create a unified security platform that seamlessly integrates multiple security products to offer clients a more comprehensive security experience.

Cisco Secure Personas is Cisco’s current framework in designing for the security experience. Cisco Secure Personas are a list of persona archetypes for key security employees used to design their products centered around the customers’ employees.

Our Research

  • To familiarize with the evolving field of cybersecurity, we conducted an extensive literature review consisting of academic papers, insutry reports and white papers

  • To identify the needs and mental models of security workers, we conducted semi-structured interviews with employees and leaders who work in the cybersecurity industry, as well as industry experts in academia, to familiarize ourselves with the current landscape of enterprise cybersecurity.

  • We hosted a focus group to get multiple people from different backgrounds in the same room to understand their practices to secure their data and how they view the importance of maintaining personal cybersecurity hygiene.

  • We continuously built and tested prototypes of varying fidelity to understand user needs and to get feedback on potential solutions.

Insights

  • Legacy

    Enterprises find it difficult to update older tools and systems, which in turn means lesser protection against newer threats.

  • Communication

    Security professionals struggle to convey the monetary value of securing a vulnerability to the management leadership.

  • Learning Curve

    Clients are discouraged by the training time & expense required to adopt new tools.

  • Lack of Awareness

    A typical end user lacks adequate knowledge about security practices, causing them to be more vulnerable to cyber threats.

Solving these three security challenges would not matter

if employees are the ones being targeted

Design Opportunities

  • Change how security is being talked about

    Most narrative in cybersecurity portrays employees as adversaries, creating distrust between employees and cybersecurity teams. We aim to reframe this punitive narrative and foster a cybersecurity culture within organizations.

  • Adapt for employee behavioral archetypes

    Multiple factors influence employee behavior in cybersecurity. By recognizing and addressing variations in the behaviors of employees, we aim to cater our solutions to the security needs and preferences of each employee.

  • Increase motivation and create value for employees

    Employees are not compensated for the friction and extra time they experience due to cybersecurity. We aim to create a system that increases motivation and allows companies to provide value to employees for their security work.

  • Create value for clients and security teams

    Security leaders need actionable metrics and insights to better organize cybersecurity policies and strategies. We aim to design for security leaders to monitor and response to individual security levels.

Design Decisions

Work Companion

  • Cosmo creates a psychological distance between employees and security policy, which is often strict and comes with serious consequences.

  • Cosmo intervenes only when risky scenarios arise, allowing users to learn based on their own behaviors.

  • A likable character, compared to a lifeless platform, allows us to influence employees’ behavior without triggering reactance.

Visualized for Reward

  • Cosmo reacts negatively toward low security scores, imposing virtual losses on employees and triggering them to improve and avoid losses.

  • Unpredictable rewards discourage employees from using strategies to play games and have them focus on cybersecurity.

  • A mix of immediate awards and delayed awards ensure long-term behavioral change and engagement.

Social Proof

  • Seeing how coworkers perform creates a social norm that people wants to follow.

  • Competing with coworkers and acquaintances allows Cosmo to leverage existing interpersonal relationships to foster relatedness.

Meet the Team

  • Parvathy Anand

  • Jacob Chen

  • Ian Clark

  • Daisy Dai

  • Subha Ramkumar