What do data centres hidden under Romanian castles, data mining, deepfakes, fight-scenes, on-screen kisses and AI supercomputers have in common? Security awareness training. Yes, seriously – and that’s just season six of KnowBe4’s The Inside Man. There’s plenty more (five other seasons in fact) where that came from.
Yes, Mark Shepherd and co are back – and it’s more explosive than ever. The Gurus were invited to the season six premiere of The Inside Man last week in London, where all 12 episodes were screened. A more intimate affair than the season five premiere (which you can read all about here), but one that measured up entirely. It’s not often that you’re actively excited to spend the afternoon watching what are effectively (cleverly disguised) training videos.
Season six heavily features AI, unsurprising as it’s the topic dominating the press (trade and otherwise) in current times. In Chapter 3, it is noted that “AI is everywhere” but it’s “not big and scary” yet it needs powerful processes to help it run. This is true. The presence of AI in our daily lives is often underestimated, from tools that help us with productivity to integrations within our favourite apps and sites. Of course, there is a slightly more ‘at stakes’ level of AI, involving data collection, conversation shaping and its predictive qualities. The show touches on the ethics of AI, including ownership and control. It acknowledges the nuances and how some may try to harness it (and I’m certain somewhere out there it is already happening) for less than agreeable reasons.
But does it hold up?
The Inside Man was created eight years ago. It’s grown in scope (and budget), but it’s stayed true to cyber and real life hacks. The creative forces behind the show (Rich Leverton, Director of Content, Jim Shields, series director and founder, and Rob McCollum, series writer, all from Twist & Shout, a KnowBe4 Company), have a hard line to toe: entertainment vs. education. Each episode must include learning moments – and the show must ‘pull’ people towards best practice (instead of pushing them into it).
The Inside Man is a series that’s rolled with the punches and evolved with the times, which is hard when network-quality shows take a long time to make and cybersecurity as an industry moves so fast. Yet, the writer, Rob McCollum, aided by KnowBe4’s crack team of evangelists (who ‘futureproof’ each episode), seems to be on the pulse with the cyber happenings of today and, crucially, tomorrow. Not once does the series feel passé or outdated in concept. Miraculous, perhaps, when the conversation du jour moves so frequently.
Is it necessary?
In short, yes. Some 20,000 customers have viewed at least one episode, with over 20m completions. Some organisations even hold watch parties for each episode, with job switchers demanding new orgs sign up to the platform to get their fix. The show also has a cult following of fans, with Halloween costumes, cakes, dissertations and ‘world’s biggest fan competitions’ among some of the things fans do to show their appreciation of the show. But what does this mean for businesses?
According to the creators, the series provides the context (the ‘why’) for KnowBe4’s wider learning catalogue. It shows that the cyber issues learned elsewhere on the platform (and there are over 2000 pieces of content to learn from) are very much possible to experience in the ‘real world’, which, in turn, makes people more interested and engaged. Director Jim Shields noted that this would have once been the ‘water cooler’ moment, even if that sounds absurd for awareness training.
What The Inside Man does best is storytelling, which, after all, underpins all good awareness training. It’s ‘sticky’ in its approach, with lots of touch points for viewers to remember issues presented. It’s a story about ‘found’ family, which, I suppose, is sort of what work is. Emotional attachment to this family is what the other stuff (awareness training) is hooked onto. What’s more, each episode is tagged with learning points (in the form of resources and videos), providing security leaders with a smorgasbord of resources from which they can pick and choose what and when they use. The power to withhold new episodes should not be taken lightly though!
Verdict?
It’s notoriously hard to get buy-in from employees on security awareness training, but The Inside Man will have teams chasing your IT head down the corridor and asking for more (true story, apparently). So, if you like your cybersecurity awareness training videos with a side of character development, this one’s for you.
The Inside Man season six is now available worldwide in the KnowBe4 ModStore. It’s been dubbed in six languages and subtitled in 35.
