Why Your Security Strategy Must Start with People, Not Technology

Modern businesses invest heavily in cutting-edge security solutions—next-generation firewalls, endpoint detection and response tools, zero-trust architectures, and other technological marvels. These investments are essential, but focusing solely on technology creates a dangerous blind spot. The inconvenient truth? Your employees remain both your greatest security vulnerability and your most powerful defense.

As someone who’s spent over three decades helping organizations navigate the intersection of technology and risk, I’ve witnessed a recurring pattern: companies purchase sophisticated security tools but fail to address the human elements that determine whether those tools succeed or fail. This disconnect explains why, despite record cybersecurity spending, breaches continue to rise.

The Uncomfortable Reality of Human Risk

Consider these facts:

When investigating security incidents, we consistently find human error at the core of most breaches. Studies back this up—anywhere from 82% to 95% of cybersecurity breaches involve human factors. An employee clicks a convincing phishing link, uses weak passwords across multiple accounts, or inadvertently shares sensitive information with the wrong recipient.

These aren’t malicious acts. They’re the result of normal human behavior colliding with complex security requirements.

During a recent engagement with a mid-sized accounting firm, we discovered they had deployed a robust security stack—complete with advanced threat protection, data loss prevention, and multi-factor authentication. Yet they’d experienced multiple security incidents within six months. The root cause? Not technological failures but human ones: password sharing, authentication workarounds, and poor security awareness.

Why Technology-First Approaches Fall Short

The technology-first approach to security suffers from several critical flaws:

1. It ignores cognitive reality

Humans aren’t computers. We make decisions based on convenience, habit, and social dynamics—not logical security protocols. When security tools create friction, people find workarounds.

I once observed an organization that implemented an elaborate data classification system requiring multiple steps to share documents. Within weeks, employees had created an unofficial workflow using personal email accounts to bypass the system entirely—creating far greater risk than the original problem.

2. It creates tool overload

Many security environments feature dozens of disconnected solutions, each with its own interface, alerts, and maintenance requirements. This overwhelms both IT teams and end users.

A manufacturing client recently showed me their security operations center. Their analysts monitored 14 different dashboards across 8 separate monitoring tools. Naturally, important alerts were frequently missed amid the noise—not because the technology was deficient, but because the human operators couldn’t effectively process the information deluge.

3. It breeds a false sense of security

Companies with extensive security stacks often develop an inflated confidence in their protection. They believe their technological investment makes them “secure,” neglecting ongoing training, testing, and adaptation.

This phenomenon, which I call “security theater,” prioritizes the appearance of security over actual risk reduction. You can see it when organizations proudly showcase their security certifications while their employees still write passwords on sticky notes.

People-First Security: A Framework

Shifting to a people-first approach doesn’t mean abandoning technology—it means designing your security program around human behavior rather than against it. Here’s how to build security that works with people, not despite them:

Start with understanding

Before implementing any security technology, understand how your people actually work. What tools do they use? What processes do they follow? Where do they experience friction? Security controls designed around actual workflow are far more effective than those imposed without context.

At one healthcare organization, we observed clinicians before redesigning their authentication systems. We discovered they logged in and out of workstations 40+ times per shift. No wonder they were finding ways to circumvent security controls—the existing design made their jobs nearly impossible.

Design for convenience

Security and usability aren’t opposing forces—they’re complementary goals. When security is convenient, adoption rises dramatically. Streamlined processes, single sign-on solutions, and intuitive interfaces reduce the temptation to create workarounds.

The most effective security programs I’ve seen make secure behavior the path of least resistance. They remove friction from legitimate workflows while adding friction to potentially dangerous actions.

Invest in awareness, not just compliance

Traditional security awareness training often focuses on checking regulatory boxes rather than changing behavior. Effective awareness programs are ongoing, relevant, and engaging.

We’ve found that short, frequent security communications tied to real-world scenarios get far better results than annual compliance courses. When a healthcare organization shifted from annual to monthly micro-training sessions (under five minutes each), their phishing susceptibility dropped by 63%.

Cultivate security culture

Culture isn’t created through policies or training sessions—it emerges from consistent modeling, storytelling, and reinforcement. Leaders must visibly practice the security behaviors they expect from their teams.

One finance company transformed their security culture by having executives share “security moments” at the beginning of all-hands meetings. These brief stories of security challenges or near-misses normalized talking about security and reinforced its importance.

Personalize risk communication

Different roles face different risks. Customize your security approach based on risk profiles, not one-size-fits-all mandates.

For example, accounting staff handling sensitive financial data need different controls and training than warehouse personnel. By tailoring security requirements to specific roles, you increase relevance and compliance while reducing unnecessary friction.

Building Human-Centric Security Controls

Once you understand your people, you can select and configure security tools that support rather than hinder their work. Here’s how effective organizations approach security technology:

1. Simplify the security stack

More tools don’t equal better security. Focus on integrated solutions that work together seamlessly rather than point products that create management overhead and user confusion.

One professional services firm reduced their security tools from 23 to 8, resulting in better coverage, lower costs, and—crucially—higher user compliance with security protocols.

2. Automate the right things

Automation should handle repetitive security tasks while leaving meaningful decisions to humans. Password management, patch deployment, and routine scanning are ideal for automation.

However, context-dependent actions like responding to potential insider threats often require human judgment. Knowing what to automate and what to keep under human control is a crucial distinction.

3. Build feedback loops

Security isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it proposition. Create mechanisms to continuously gather feedback from users about security processes and tools.

When implementing new security controls, one manufacturing company established a “security ambassador” program where representatives from each department provided ongoing feedback about security usability. This input led to refinements that dramatically improved adoption.

4. Test with real users

Before fully deploying security solutions, test them with representative users in realistic scenarios. Watch for points of friction or confusion that might lead to workarounds.

We’ve seen organizations avoid costly security failures by identifying usability issues during controlled testing rather than after company-wide deployment.

Measuring Human Security Effectiveness

How do you know if your people-first approach is working? Move beyond technical metrics to measure human security effectiveness:

Behavior change indicators

Track measurable security behaviors—like phishing report rates, password manager adoption, or multi-factor authentication usage—to gauge program effectiveness.

Security exception requests

Monitor requests for security exceptions. A high volume of exception requests often indicates that security controls are creating unsustainable friction.

Shadow IT discovery

Regularly scan for unauthorized applications or workarounds. These reveal gaps where security tools are failing to meet legitimate business needs.

Qualitative feedback

Gather stories and impressions about security from across the organization. Do people see security as enabling their work or hindering it?

The Path Forward

Transforming your security approach from technology-focused to people-focused won’t happen overnight. Start with these practical steps:

1. Map the human journey

Document how different teams interact with security tools and requirements. Identify points of friction and unnecessary complexity.

2. Bring security and business leaders together

Create regular touchpoints between security personnel and operational leaders to align security controls with business needs.

3. Prioritize improvements

Focus first on high-friction security controls that protect your most critical assets. Small improvements in these areas yield outsized benefits.

4. Tell success stories

Publicly recognize teams that find ways to improve security without sacrificing productivity. These stories reinforce that security and efficiency can coexist.

The Sustainable Security Advantage

Organizations that build security programs around human behavior gain a powerful competitive advantage. They experience fewer breaches, lower operational costs, and greater agility in responding to new threats.

Perhaps most importantly, they create sustainable security—protection that doesn’t depend on constant enforcement but becomes embedded in how people naturally work.

After guiding dozens of organizations through this transformation, I’ve seen firsthand how shifting from technology-first to people-first security creates resilience that technical controls alone simply cannot achieve.

The most secure organizations don’t just have the best technology—they have cultures where security becomes reflexive, where protected information and systems are handled with appropriate care not because policies demand it, but because it’s simply how things are done.

That cultural transformation—turning security from an imposed burden into a shared value—represents the ultimate human element in cybersecurity. And it’s the foundation upon which truly effective security must be built.

Tom Glover is Chief Revenue Officer at Responsive Technology Partners, specializing in cybersecurity and risk management. With over 35 years of experience helping organizations navigate the complex intersection of technology and risk, Tom provides practical insights for business leaders facing today’s security challenges.