Towards Designing a Method to Create Sticky Information Security Training for SMEs: Identifying Design Factors

The risk of being impacted by a cyberattack is high, because of more professional attacks. Thereby, cyber criminals are bypassing technological countermeasures through tricking users. Recently collected data during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic demonstrate, that cyberattacks including social engineering are among the main threats, especially for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME). (Information) Security Education and Training Awareness (SETA) is proposed to be an effective countermeasure. However, the effects of SETA fade rapidly over time and learnings are not applied in practice sustainably. Thus, we state that a method is required to create SETA programs with sustainable learning outcomes for SME. To develop such a method, we follow the Design Science Research Methodology and share insights of our first design cycle in this article. We conducted a literature review and analyzed factors of failure and success regarding the design of sustainable SETA programs. Furthermore, we sketch our plans for design cycle 2.