How should the effectiveness of a security awareness program be measured?

Measuring the effectiveness of a security awareness program primarily hinges on gauging changes in employee behavior. This is because the ultimate goal of such a program is to instill a culture of security awareness among employees, leading to improved practices in their daily work. Effective behavioral change can be viewed in several ways, such as a decrease in security incidents reported, increased adherence to security policies, or more proactive engagement in security practices, such as reporting suspicious activities.

Tracking the number of sessions held alone may indicate the quantity of training provided but doesn't assess whether employees retained the information or changed their behavior as a result. Calculating the average incident cost gives insights into financial impacts but does not directly link to the effectiveness of the awareness training. Evaluating technical performance metrics focuses on system-level security rather than the human elements crucial to a security-aware culture in the workplace. Therefore, the most direct measure of a security awareness program's success comes from observing how employees adapt their behavior in response to the training they have received.