An appointment with the Doctor to discuss culture, behaviour and decision making.

If you’re a regular listener then you will have already met today’s guest Dr. Char Sample. Char is a force at work deep within the information security community. Char is a rarity, combining a deep knowledge of both the technical and human aspects of the challenges security professionals face when managing cyber security risks.

Char and I go back a long way, to a horrible conference lunch in London, where her riveting conversation meant I didn’t have to eat what was on the plate in front of me. I have been forever grateful. That riveting conversation was all about our shared understanding of how culture influences everyone’s day to day behaviours and how everyday behaviours make up culture. That shared interest has led to many conversations and shared ideas about how the information security industry could step up a level by seeing the potential for improving how we assess and manage human factor risks.

In this episode we capture one of those conversations. We talk about heuristics and biases, what they are and what role they might have in artificial intelligence. Why what makes us human often makes us behave in seemingly irrational ways even when presented with all the data we need  and assumptions we frequently make when developing and designing systems and processes and how this is undermining the management of business risks.

Be warned, there's a lot of laughter in this episode.