KB4-Con 2023: Security Culture Critical to Fight Against Phishing

KnowBe4‘s KB4-Con 2023 kicked off Monday with the company stressing the importance of the “culture connection” as the next evolution of security awareness training.

KB4-Con 2023 is happening this week in Orlando, Florida. It has attracted about 1,300 customers and about 130 partners.

Michael Williams, KnowBe4’s chief marketing officer, said the message of culture connection will be prevalent throughout the conference.

KnowBe4’s Michael Williams

“Perry Carpenter, who’s our chief evangelist, wrote a book called ‘The Security Culture Playbook,'” he said. “And it kind of set the standard for what we believe is the next generation or evolution of security awareness training. Granted, security awareness and phishing simulation are important.

“But there are all the other elements that build a strong security culture; for example, executive support, communication, even your security policies, in addition to just the tools and technology,” he added. “It’s all these kinds of people, processes and policies that make up and contribute to your overall security culture, whether it’s good, weak or somewhere in the middle.”

KB4-Con 2023 to Cover Elements of Security Culture

Organizations can’t just do training or phishing simulation, Williams said.

“You need all those other soft elements – the people and process – and that includes our channel partners, too,” he said. “They are often serving the needs of their customers well beyond just KnowBe4’s products. They’re helping them set their security strategies and consequently their security culture. So this security culture discussion is something that has come from our customers and from our partners, and they want to hear more and more about it.”

After KB4-Con, KnowBe4 will continue to spread the word about the human layer of defense, Williams said.

“We’re adding a lot to it because it’s becoming a much broader conversation than it used to be, and we’re hearing that significantly from our partners,” he said.

Scroll through our slideshow above for more from this week’s KB4-Con 2023.