SERVICE PROVIDER OVERVIEW

SIRI Law LLP is a multidisciplinary law firm providing legal, regulatory, and operational excellence advisory services to regulated enterprises. As part of its operational excellence offering, the firm assists organizations in identifying, governing, and mitigating human-centric risks that sit at the intersection of law, technology, operations, and behavior.

This engagement demonstrates SIRI Law LLP’s capability to address social engineering and human risk not merely as a cybersecurity concern, but as an enterprise governance, compliance, and resilience issue.

ENGAGEMENT BACKGROUND

• The client was a global financial services institution operating across more than 40 countries with a workforce exceeding 10,000 employees. The organization handled significant volumes of sensitive financial, personal, and transactional data and operated under strict regulatory oversight and audit scrutiny.
• Despite substantial investment in technical cybersecurity controls, including email security, endpoint protection, and identity management, the organization experienced repeated phishing incidents, near-miss credential disclosures, and internal policy violations related to employee behavior. While no single incident resulted in immediate financial loss, leadership identified a pattern of human-driven exposure that posed material regulatory, reputational, and operational risk.
• The executive team acknowledged that while systems and infrastructure were routinely assessed and tested, the human layer had never been evaluated with the same rigor. Annual security awareness training was in place, but its effectiveness had never been objectively measured.
• SIRI Law LLP was engaged to conduct an enterprise-wide social engineering and human risk assessment as part of the organization’s broader operational excellence and cyber resilience initiative. The objective was to move beyond awareness and into measurable, governable human risk management.

STRATEGIC CONTEXT AND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

• The organization operated in a high-trust, high-pressure environment. Employees routinely processed confidential data, customer information, financial approvals, and regulatory communications. Many decisions were made under urgency, authority, and operational stress, conditions that are frequently exploited by social engineering attacks.
• Ongoing digital transformation initiatives increased reliance on email, voice, and identity-based workflows. Remote working models and global collaboration expanded the organization’s attack surface beyond traditional office boundaries. At the same time, regulators and auditors increasingly expected evidence that security controls were effective in practice, not merely documented.
• Within this context, leadership sought clear answers to governance-level questions. Where did human behavior create material risk? Were existing policies and training effective under real-world conditions? Could human risk be measured, tracked, and managed in the same way as other enterprise risks?

THREAT LANDSCAPE AND RISK HYPOTHESIS

• SIRI Law LLP developed a threat and risk hypothesis informed by financial-sector threat intelligence, enforcement trends, and prior incident analysis.
• The hypothesis was based on several observations. Social engineering attacks increasingly bypass technical controls by exploiting human trust rather than system vulnerabilities. Authority, urgency, and familiarity are consistently used to override employee judgment. Traditional annual training programs increase awareness but do not reliably translate into secure behavior. Most organizations lack structured mechanisms to quantify human risk or integrate it into enterprise risk management frameworks.
• The assessment was designed to test this hypothesis through controlled, evidence-based simulation rather than assumption.

CONTROL ENVIRONMENT REVIEW

• Before initiating any active social engineering activity, SIRI Law LLP conducted a structured review of the organization’s existing control environment. This included analysis of security awareness policies, training content and frequency, incident reporting and escalation procedures, physical access controls, visitor management processes, and executive accountability structures.
• The review found that policies were formally documented and broadly aligned with industry standards. However, enforcement, reinforcement, and behavioral measurement varied significantly across business units and regions. Training completion was tracked, but behavioral outcomes were not measured. Incident reporting processes existed, but employee confidence and consistency in using them varied.
• This phase established a baseline view of how controls were designed on paper, against which actual behavior would later be evaluated.

ASSESSMENT METHODOLOGY AND GOVERNANCE

• SIRI Law LLP designed a multi-vector social engineering assessment that balanced realism with legal, ethical, and operational defensibility. The methodology was approved by senior leadership and conducted under strict governance to avoid business disruption.
• Digital social engineering formed the first pillar of the assessment. Three tiers of phishing simulations were conducted targeting 500 employees across multiple geographies and functions. Campaigns were customized by role and business context, using scenarios such as internal IT alerts, financial approval requests, customer escalations, and compliance notifications.
• Voice-based social engineering formed the second pillar. Simulated vishing calls were conducted, impersonating internal IT support, vendors, and senior stakeholders. These interactions tested identity verification practices, escalation discipline, and the willingness of employees to disclose information under perceived authority or urgency.
• The third pillar involved physical and environmental testing. Stealth access assessments were conducted at two global office locations to evaluate tailgating resistance, badge usage, and visitor escort enforcement.
• All activities were time-bound, logged, and evidence-backed, ensuring auditability and defensibility.

HUMAN BEHAVIOR FINDINGS

• The assessment produced clear and measurable insights into employee behavior under real-world conditions.
• In digital scenarios, the initial phishing simulations resulted in a 23 percent click rate. Eight percent of targeted users attempted to submit credentials or sensitive information. Higher susceptibility was observed among teams handling finance operations, customer data, and time-sensitive workflows.
• Voice-based testing revealed inconsistent identity verification practices. Employees often relied on tone, familiarity, or perceived authority rather than formal verification steps. In several instances, internal process information was disclosed under urgency, despite explicit policy prohibitions.
• Physical testing identified multiple tailgating incidents during peak entry hours. Badge-sharing practices were observed, and visitor escort enforcement varied by location and time of day.
• These findings demonstrated a material gap between documented policy expectations and actual employee behavior.

GOVERNANCE AND RISK INTEGRATION

• A key element of SIRI Law LLP’s approach was translating behavioral findings into governance-ready outputs.
• Human-layer vulnerabilities were mapped to enterprise risk categories and integrated into the organization’s existing risk register. Findings were aligned with ISO 27001 awareness and training requirements and internal audit criteria. This enabled human risk to be discussed using the same language and metrics as other operational, compliance, and technology risks.
• Executive ownership for awareness and behavioral controls was clarified. Human risk was repositioned from a training or IT issue to a board-level governance concern.

INTERVENTION AND REMEDIATION STRATEGY

• Rather than recommending generic awareness programs, SIRI Law LLP supported targeted, role-specific interventions. High-risk functions received customized training focused on realistic scenarios encountered during the assessment. Real examples from the engagement were used to reinforce relevance and credibility.
• Physical security behaviors were reinforced through clear guidance, accountability mechanisms, and management oversight. A quarterly phishing simulation and reporting cadence was established to ensure continuous measurement rather than one-time testing.
• The remediation strategy focused on decision-making under pressure, behavioral reinforcement, and accountability, rather than theoretical knowledge alone.

METRICS, MEASUREMENT, AND OUTCOMES

• Post-intervention measurement demonstrated clear improvement. The phishing click rate reduced from 23 percent to 5 percent within 60 days. Credential submission attempts dropped to negligible levels. Participation in mandatory awareness programs reached 100 percent.
• Five critical control gaps across human resources, information technology, and physical security were closed. More importantly, the organization gained a repeatable mechanism to measure, track, and govern human risk over time.
• These outcomes provided defensible evidence of risk reduction suitable for executive reporting, audit review, and regulatory scrutiny.

MATURITY PROGRESSION AND STRATEGIC IMPACT

• Using a structured maturity model, the organization progressed from a Level 1 state, characterized by ad hoc and reactive management of human risk, to Level 3, where risk was defined, measured, and governed.
• Leadership gained sustained visibility into behavioral risk trends and the ability to intervene proactively. Human risk became an integrated component of the organization’s operational excellence, resilience, and compliance strategy.

EXECUTIVE PERSPECTIVE

• The engagement demonstrated that human behavior is not an abstract or soft issue, but a quantifiable and governable risk domain. By applying legal, operational, and behavioral rigor, the organization materially reduced exposure and strengthened trust with regulators, customers, and stakeholders.