SC520: Human Factors in Cyber Security

Agenda:

Daily Structure
Participants first experience each pattern in a hands-on exercise and only then put a name to it.

• Block 1: Hands-on exercise, debrief, and theory

• Lunch break

• Block 2: Hands-on exercise, debrief, and theory

Module 1: Perceiving

• Block 1: Situational awareness: what gets noticed and what gets missed

• Block 2: Thinking traps and stress: how pressure distorts judgment

Module 2: Deciding and Communicating

• Block 1: Decision-making models for crisis situations, structured communication, leading and coordinating

• Block 2: “Network under fire” simulation: workload, team behavior, and leadership under strain

Module 3: Learning and Leading

• Block 1: Post-incident reviews and just culture

• Block 2: The leadership role in a crisis, dealing with leadership failure (perceived and actual), applying the learning to your own role

Objectives:

In the SC520 Human Factors in Cyber Security workshop, participants experience first-hand how human factors limit their ability to act and to lead. They learn effective tools for leading themselves and others responsibly.

By the end of the three days, participants will be able to:

• Recognize and counter thinking traps under pressure, both their own and those of others

• Structure team communication so that critical information gets through and people still feel able to challenge

• Make decisions under uncertainty, explain the reasoning behind them, and correct course in time

• Conduct blameless post-incident reviews

• Recognize and manage their own stress levels

Target audience:

This course is designed for anyone who carries responsibility in a crisis, whether for decisions, for a team, or for both.
Typical roles include CISOs, business continuity managers, heads of IT, incident response and SOC leads, and members of emergency and crisis management teams.
It is also well suited to executives who lead their organization through a crisis themselves.

The SC510 Cyber Security Emergency Training for CISOs and Security Professionals workshop prepares the organization for a crisis: the crisis team, the processes, and the shared operational picture.
The SC520 Human Factors in Cyber Security workshop, on the other hand, prepares the people who lead it. The two courses complement each other perfectly and can be taken in either order.

Prerequisites:

• Several years in responsible leadership position
• Willingness for active participation
• Openness for extraordinary interpersonal exchange

Description:

Even when plans, processes, and technology are in place, it is people who have to carry them out under time pressure, with an incomplete picture of the situation, and on too little sleep. That is exactly where even highly skilled teams start to break down. Someone spots the problem but says nothing. A decision gets made out of habit. An instruction lands differently than it was intended.

Human factors are both a limitation and a resource. Once you understand them, you can manage them, both in yourself and across your team. The tools come from fields where mistakes cost lives: aviation, high-reliability organizations, and military leadership. They are proven, simple, and transferable. They cover structured communication, a shared operational picture, decision-making under stress, and dealing with cognitive biases. In a crisis, this reduces friction across the organization and leads to clearer decisions and more candid post-incident reviews.

For CISOs, executives, and senior management, this kind of personal preparation is not a “soft skill.” It is a critical factor in emergency and crisis management.