Barclays Bank has raised its employees' awareness of
information security by a factor of 10, after turning to Hollywood
to educate over 100,000 staff.
The bank produced a
"mockumentary"
made up of short Hollywood blockbuster-style films to illustrate
key information security principles.
"Access Denied" Barclays' video on incident
reporting:
"We wanted to do something different and be clever about
delivery," said
Mark Logsdon, deputy head of information risk management at
Barclays.
Breaking from the standard corporate format was more successful
than expected, he told information security professionals at an
ISC2 Secure London conference.
"The proposal was certainly different and not like anything I
had seen in Barclays. It was risky, but we managed this by
involving all stakeholders in the process," he said.
Barclays recruited representatives of the legal, compliance,
audit, marketing and communications departments to support the
project.
"The video was not mandatory, but we had unexpected demand
across the business, driven by movie posters, film trailers and a
film premier event," said Logsdon.
Barclays made the video available to its 140,000 employees
around the world, recording a tenfold increase in the reporting of
security risks and incidents.
"Many more employees now know exactly what to do if they
encounter any security risks or incidents," said Logsdon.
The video has not only been effective in communicating
information security principles, but has also proven to be
cost-effective, he said.
"Many organisations are put off by the cost, but the whole
project has worked out at less than £1 per employee," said
Logsdon.
The project took only four months to complete from concept to
release, but should last up to five years as the film can be edited
and updated, he said.
Barclays worked with a Leicester-based
production company to make the film.