A Regressional Study on the Impact of Organizational Security Culture and Transformational Leadership on Social Engineering Awareness among Bank Employees: The Interplay of Security Education and Behavioral Change

Abstract

Organizations across various sectors are increasingly vulnerable to cybersecurity breaches in an era characterized by unprecedented technological advancements and a rapidly evolving threat landscape. Among the myriad methods employed by malicious actors, social engineering stands out as a particularly insidious and effective means of infiltrating secure systems and obtaining sensitive information. To effectively address these issues, organizations must establish and sustain a principled security process; this process goes beyond installing the latest security technologies. It encompasses the concept of "organizational security culture. This paper investigates the impact of organizational security culture and transformational leadership on bank employees' social engineering awareness, focusing on security education and behavioral change. Social engineering is the unauthorized infiltration of the end user's computer system and network through malware techniques such as tailgating, phishing, vishing, pretexting, and baiting to gain access to companies and individual confidential data; thus, this study aims to analyze the effect of organizational security culture and transformational leadership on social engineering awareness among bank employees while assessing security education's role in driving behavioral change. This research used the Likert scale model to collect primary data through survey questionnaires from 450 bank employees. The data collected was analyzed using linear regression analysis to test the study’s hypothesis. This study recommends that banking institutions should adopt a good organizational security culture and expose their staff to effective security education, as this will cause a change in employees' security behavior and more research should be conducted regarding security culture, security education, and awareness programs within banking institutions due to bank operations' ever-dynamic nature and ensuring preparedness for prevailing cyber threats.