European Cyber Security Month 2026: Planning Effective Security Awareness Communications
European Cyber Security Month - Planning The Delivery @channel October is nearly here! It’s the pinnacle moment in many of our programmes, when we get permission to push our message harder than ever across Security Awareness Month. Over the next 3 weeks, I’ll pop in with tips, reminders and tools to help you be as prepared as you can be for the coming month. In this first episode, I want to focus on three things:
- 1.
📉 Before you start this journey, it’s important that you’ve assessed your cultural maturity and the risks it points to. Decide which behaviours need to change, what ‘better’ looks like, and which teams need the most attention. If you haven’t done this already, loop back and do it NOW to give yourself a foundation for what comes next.
- 2.
🎯 SoSafe has already built a set of content for you: sosafe-awareness.com/ecsm-2026. It has four weeks of awareness content covering Phishing, Voice Scams, Shadow AI and Deepfakes. If these topics overlap with your key messages, feel free to use this content.
- 3.
📣 Free content is great, but it’s only half the solution – you need a solid communications plan to drive your messaging and interactions. Following on from last week’s ‘Off The Hook’ PPT, I’ve created a Communications Plan template, pre-populated with some example content.
The plan will drive clarity about what you are trying to achieve. Most of the columns are self-explanatory but a few deserve some explanation:
BJ Fogg Focus - Highlights the specific behaviour-change lever that you are using in that scenario – try to ensure you cover all three for each topic!
Mouthpiece - Separates content from delivery - we know that other voices often carry more credibility than the CISO, so choose deliberately for maximum impact
Associated policy - Gives you a place to record which policy covers this message, aiding in any subsequent Q&A with staff.
Tests - Freeform column to record ideas for metrics that validate scope and impact of your communication. Useful to prove value when we get to November.
Take the template and adapt it to your needs. I’d love to know which columns work for you, which don’t, and what you add. One thing’s certain: don’t head into October without a clear plan for every communication activity.
