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Empired launches new app to reduce human error and improve security
Thu, 2nd Dec 2021
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Empired has announced the launch of the Empired User Secure Score app. As the latest addition to the company's cybersecurity toolkit for organisations, it's designed to help individuals contribute to the security of the organisation in which they work.

The Empired User Secure Score works alongside Microsoft Teams, combining cybersecurity experience from the two companies, to give organisations a bird's eye view of the level of security compliance from their team.

Empired's User Secure Score provides real-time views of individual users' security behaviours including scores, ranking and suggestions for improvement.

According to the company, this moves cybersecurity awareness beyond the theory of education and lets organisations and individuals take control with real behavioural change across the entire spectrum of operations including roles, environments and geographies.

The way it works is that the Empired User Secure Score queries the Microsoft graph and other application programming interfaces (APIs), and then calculates a user secure score for a set of security measures and controls.

The individual score is then presented to the user in Teams along with their team score average, and the organisation's average score.

The app also provides the user with a list of controls they can implement to increase their score and step-by-step instructions on how to add these to improve their personal security score.

While most organisations invest heavily in their cybersecurity in terms of training, software and hardware to keep their digital assets safe, the reality is that every member of a business can contribute to the overall security posture, not just dedicated cybersecurity experts, the company states.

Empired group general manager, modern work and digital Darren Christophersen says, “The question for organisations shouldn't be how to stop hackers getting into staff devices, it should be how to train their staff to treat their devices like they're the keys to the company safe. And the answer is not simply more education or training.

"While the training may be successfully delivered, there is no way to tell if it is understood and acted upon, or if the risk profile is decreasing.

Christophersen says, “Empired manages the Empired User Secure Score app as a service, implemented in a dedicated Microsoft Azure subscription in the data center of the organisation's choice.

"As part of the service, Empired will continually add new measures and manage the underlying data structure.

"The organisation can access its snapshot easily at any time with Empired on hand to recommend what action to take to ensure that incomplete tasks are implemented."

Christophersen concludes, “Empired will also provide up-to-date information on new threats and strategies to apply within this easy-to-use and adaptable framework.

"By implementing the Empired User Secure Score alongside Microsoft Teams, individuals and organisations can be made aware of the impact their actions can have on keeping malicious attacks at bay.