New report reveals how genuine psychological safety can improve cybersecurity at work
The lack of psychological safety in workplaces can make organisations more vulnerable to cyberattacks, as a culture of fear can silence targeted employees at work, according to a new report.
A survey of 500 Singapore-based office workers by KnowBe4 found that 50% of junior and middle-tier staff don't feel comfortable challenging a request from senior executives.
This comes amid fears of appearing disrespectful (40%), delaying important work (39%), and facing disciplinary action (30%), according to the report.
Nearly a quarter of employees (23%) also said their company culture discourages questioning senior leaders, while 39% said they are under pressure to respond quickly.
Cybersecurity consequences
This discomfort with questioning authority can lead to consequences when faced with deepfakes, especially as artificial intelligence (AI) can make such scams more believable.
"In Singapore, hierarchy works like a trust shortcut, one that AI-enabled scams are now designed to exploit," said Dr Kawin Boonyapredee, chief information security officer advisor at KnowBe4.
"A cloned voice or a convincing message from 'the boss' doesn't need to fool the technology. It only needs to activate an instinct not to question authority."
In fact, the report further found that 45% of employees would be equally as worried about delaying a request from a senior leader as about accidentally causing a cybersecurity incident.
Another nine per cent said they would rather risk a breach than delay their bosses' requests.
Gap on questioning authority
This culture of fear persists in workplaces despite 62% of employees saying their workplace empowers them to question suspicious requests from senior leaders, even when they appear urgent, according to the report.
This means most workplaces support employees pushing back on suspicious requests.
"That gap, between what organisations say on paper and what employees actually feel able to do, is the first problem," the report read.
The findings indicate the need for workplaces to foster "genuine psychological safety" for junior and middle-tier staff so they can better question suspicious requests from senior leaders without fear of consequence.
"Until questioning an urgent request from the top becomes as automatic as double-checking a suspicious link, at every level of seniority, Singapore's businesses will keep failing the deepfake test," the report read.
