Ask any CISO and they’d agree that user security is important. End users make mistakes, ignore security alerts, and don’t think like security teams — and this leads to security incidents that put your data at risk.

So, making sure that end users are secure is critical to protecting employee, customer, and corporate data from theft and other threats. Strong user security can also support compliance efforts, prevent financial losses, and preserve brand reputation.

But what is user security, exactly? And how can organizations achieve it? Let’s start with the basics.

What is User Security?

User security is the practice of securing users who use organizational devices, software, and data. This could mean deploying security technologies, implementing controls, or requiring employees to complete security training.

Examples of user security include:

• Strong passwords and multi-factor authentication (MFA)
• Regular software updates and patches
• Firewalls and anti-malware software
• Secure browsing practices
• Employee cybersecurity training
• Access controls and user permissions
• Incident response and monitoring systems

To take control over their end user protection, modern security teams typically deploy a number of purpose-built solutions that establish guardrails around end users and keep corporate data secure. These include:

• Endpoint security solutions to protect individual devices (such as computers, smartphones, or tablets) from cybersecurity threats
• Identity and access management (IAM) solutions that use zero-trust principles support user security by allowing only authorized users access to sensitive information, applications, and systems
• Malware protection solutions that prevent, detect, and remove malware and other threats (ransomware, worms, Trojans, and spyware) from endpoint devices

…and the list goes on.

It doesn’t take long for security teams to build up a large tech stack of best-of-breed solutions that each address a critical piece of user security.

Challenges with User Security

On its own, each piece of technology in your security stack is critical and necessary. But together, it can be overwhelming for security and IT teams to manage. Each solution generates distinct alerts, many of which do not receive proper attention due to the time it takes security teams to engage users to remediate risk.

Furthermore, many solutions only generate snapshots of user security to satisfy audits for compliance purposes. Gaps around each element of user security need to be monitored continuously in real time — and triaged swiftly to reduce risk and ensure that protection measures are up to date.

Of course, this is easier said than done. In many cases, security teams try to stitch together data and actionability with some combination of data warehouses, custom dashboards, ticket management, workflow orchestration, chatbots, and generative AI. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this patchwork of homegrown middleware glue is cumbersome and not sustainable.

And even if there is a holistic data feed on the security side, there’s still the challenge of chasing down employees to install that patch update, restart their device, or otherwise take action to improve their security posture. When security feels like a roadblock to productivity (which, let’s face it, it often does), employees tend to find workarounds that end up creating major vulnerabilities.

The Need for a User Security Knowledge Graph

So, what is a CISO with a growing tech stack to do? The first step is to map real-time data from across your user security solutions into a vendor-neutral user security graph. This should paint a holistic picture of risk across all of the different security vectors surrounding the user.

To efficiently remediate risk, security and IT teams need a single source of truth for employee risk and activity across their best-of-breed security tools. Only by pulling together the data from each disparate solution can practitioners assess their users’ security posture and identify necessary remediation actions.

A user security graph is your answer. By reviewing risk signals with users at the center, practitioners can identify the most vulnerable users, visualize likely attack paths, and uncover where controls are missing. The result is a comprehensive picture of security health that teams and employees can quickly take action on.

Turning Security Data into Employee Action

Many traditional security tools stay in the background. They are owned and operated by security and IT teams, with little end user interaction – none of this changes user behavior. Beyond security training content and phishing simulations, the main time users interact with security is when their computer force-reboots to install a security update, often at an inconvenient time — not the most positive interaction.

The user security graph flips the script by democratizing security data. With visibility into their own hygiene and related actions, employees are empowered to improve their security stance. The graph data gives context to inform meaningful engagements with end users, powering agentic AI user automation that keeps security top of mind and enables users to take action directly.

Security doesn’t have to be a retroactive enforcement function. Democratizing security data with a user security graph helps bridge the gap between security, IT ops, and the workforce. This leads to a more positive security culture, one that harmoniously aligns security controls with user workflows.

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