What is Human Risk Management (HRM)?
Human Risk Management (HRM) is a security discipline that measures the security-related behaviors of individual employees, scores their risk level, and delivers targeted interventions to reduce that risk. It is used by security teams to move beyond one-size-fits-all awareness programs and address the specific behaviors that put an organization at risk.
What it does
Human Risk Management platforms collect data on how employees behave across security-relevant activities. They assign each person a risk score based on observed behavior, survey responses, or signals from connected tools. When a score rises above a threshold, the platform triggers a targeted response. That response might be a short training module, a real-time nudge, a manager alert, or a change in access policy.
Core functions typically include:
- Baselining security culture and behavior across the organization
- Scoring individual employees on a continuous or periodic basis
- Delivering adaptive interventions tied to specific risky behaviors
- Removing employee personal data from data brokers and the dark web
- Producing per-user and org-level reports for security leaders and boards
Why teams buy it
Traditional security awareness training sends the same content to everyone on the same schedule. HRM platforms replace that with a data-driven approach. Teams buy them to:
- Identify the employees who carry the most risk before an incident occurs
- Prove to auditors and boards that human risk is being measured and managed
- Reduce phishing click rates and credential exposure at the individual level
- Satisfy cyber insurance requirements that ask for evidence of human risk controls
What to look for
- Risk scoring methodology: Is it based on observed behavior, self-reported surveys, or both? Understand what data feeds the score.
- Intervention types: Does the platform support real-time nudges, phishing simulation, microlearning, and manager escalation, or only one of these?
- : Can it pull signals from your identity provider, email gateway, and endpoint tools?