A secure business messaging application for SMEs that helps prevent cyberattacks when sharing information among colleagues.

Hadrian Cybersecurity

Expertise

Role

UX/UI

Duration

20 weeks

Platform

Web

Try out my prototype

Research Empathize Design Reflections

Overview

With the emergence of the pandemic, many companies have transitioned to remote work to protect their employees from COVID-19. This has resulted in a significant increase in cyberattacks by cybercriminals against companies, leading to substantial economic losses. Many companies have had to cease their economic activity due to a lack of resources to cope with a cyberattack aftermath.

Problem Statement

98% of companies in Spain are made up of SMEs that lack resources to recover from economic losses following a cyberattack. Additionally, they are poorly prepared in terms of cybersecurity. Most cyberattacks occur within the daily internal communication of companies that share confidential data of their customers and their own company.

Solution

Hadrian Cybersecurity enables you to protect the information you share with your colleagues by informing you of possible anomalies in the documentation you share, in addition to providing self-learning tools in cybersecurity, allowing you to manage an incident independently. Also, through gamification, your secure activities are visualized within the app, enabling periodic monitoring of your progress.

Design Process

Learn more about the UX Double Diamond.

Research

Through information gathering, I began to explore the double diamond and focused on understanding the issue. The techniques I used were:

Interviews
Benchmarking
Stakeholder Matrix

The data revealed that:

100.000 €

is the cost of loss from a cyberattack to a company in Spain in 2022.

Of the companies, are cyber-prepared.

48%

Of the SMEs, experienced at least one cyberattack in 2022.

60%

Of the SMEs, closed within 6 months after a cyberattack.

90%

Of the cyberattacks occur in messaging applications.

The qualitative research method was applied through semi-structured interviews conducted with 5 specialists in the field of cybersecurity and 5 managers of Spanish SMEs.

Interviews

“My company doesn't have enough resources to invest in cybersecurity training.”

“Many companies are not aware that they can suffer a cyberattack until it happens.”

“I would like my employees to be trained in cybersecurity without having to dedicate too much time from their usual work”.

“Companies share sensitive information, and if they don't protect their data, they suffer from information leakage”.

Obtaining the following insights:

There is a lack of awareness among SMEs about cybersecurity.

SMEs do not invest resources in training their employees in cybersecurity.

SMEs react to cyberattacks instead of preventing them.

Cyberattacks mostly occur in the internal communication space of a company when sharing information.

Benchmark

After obtaining the insights that would drive the strategies to be implemented in our solution, we investigated the tools currently available in the cybersecurity market to detect and defend against a cyberattack. To do this, I conducted a competitive benchmark of the top products in the industry across four categories.

User persona

In this phase of the design process, we are defining and closing the first diamond with the data obtained from the previous research.

In this case, we can determine based on the research conducted and the insights obtained from the interviews that our user persona is the CEO/Manager of the SME due to their influence within the company.

Journey Map

Antonio's starting point is when he tries to share sensitive information with his colleagues at work and discovers that the file is infected .

Write message

Send document

Infected file

Doesn't know what to do

“Marcos, here I send you the personal documentation of our client so that you can make the reservation for his trip.”

"I'm attaching the PDF with all the information."

"I don't know why my screen went dark."

"I don't know how to restore communication with Marcos. I'm worried."

Opportunities

Malicious file detector.
Video tutorials that explain the reasons behind the threat.

Video channel for self-learning in cybersecurity. Fast, simple, and flexible.
Employee gamification to encourage safe.

Ideation

"We find ourselves in the second phase of the diamond where we start brainstorming ideas that answer the question, ''How could we create an application that can...?''

Protect the information

After conducting several ideation sessions with SME employees, cybersecurity analysts, and high-level executives within several company, I decided that the best idea that suited the users' needs was the following:

Offering a secure messaging application that detects threats in shared files through intelligent software (IDS) to help prevent cyberattacks, while also providing users with tools to learn about cybersecurity for free.

Translating needs into features

From the touch points and needs gleamed from the empathizing phase, I created a Product Feature Roadmap to outline specific app features and organize upcoming design efforts.

Design & Prototype

With a better understanding of the users and prioritizing app features, I began designing how those features would be realized. Hadrian Cybersecurity would focus on three main capabilities:

1. Identifying a malicious file
2. Educating with cybersecurity content
3. Measuring employees' learning level

Sketching user flows

To establish user flow and content layout, I sketched out wireframes for screens that users would need in order to complete the three main tasks.

The main feature I wanted to highlight was the ability to detect a malicious file, thus enabling the creation of a secure environment within the messaging platform.

Branding & UI Systems

Hadrian Cybersecurity emerges from the original Hadrian's Wall located in northern England, known as a great wall that protected against invasions. Hadrian Cybersecurity is a 'wall' that protects against external threats. The final logo is a combination of a shield and a paper airplane symbolizing instant messaging.

High-Fidelity Wireframes

Reflections

Hadrian has been a project of over 6 months in which I have learned a lot about cybersecurity and malware detection tools. After having completed the ideal user flow and high-fidelity screens, the next steps would be to iterate and design features beyond the MVP.

I focused on developing functionalities for malware alert and prevention, as well as cyber educating employees against potential threats when sharing sensitive information. An area for improvement would be to evaluate whether a modal alert is the best way to prevent a cyber attack in the future without halting work production; this will be assessed in the next phase of the product.

Project Conclusions:

I knew that embarking on this project would be a challenge due to my lack of knowledge in cybersecurity.

What basic knowledge should users have to avoid harming the company? How could the interface help prevent information leakage? I truly enjoyed researching and devising strategic solutions for users without cybersecurity knowledge.

Some key conclusions are:

I thoroughly researched existing software on the market that would aid in the prevention and detection of malware and assessed the implementation cost in relation to the cost-benefit for the CEO of an SME.
Understanding the level of employees' lack of knowledge in cybersecurity and working on a simple interface that allows educating on potential mistakes within a work environment.
Designing existing patterns to reduce cognitive load and encourage learning through gamification.

While an application cannot address all the needs of small businesses, starting with a useful and simple solution can help reduce the percentage of losses for SMEs due to cyber-attacks.