By Michael Henry, CEO, Accelerynt
The most dangerous security posture in enterprise America today is a perfect password reset policy.
Not because the policy is wrong: it’s probably fine. The danger is that a documented, trained, and audited policy creates the illusion of control while leaving the actual vulnerability wide open.
The question inevitably comes. Perhaps it’s after the Clorox news, or maybe MGM. During the tail end of a board meeting, the audit committee chair looks over at you and asks: “Could that happen to us?”
It’s the moment every CISO dreads, not because they don’t know the answer, but because the answer is complicated and the pressure to provide an immediate, concrete fix is intense.
So, we retreat to the comfort of the “People and Process” playbook. We audit the password reset policy to confirm that the document is perfect. We assign a mandatory 15-minute training module to the help desk. We keep compliance rates above 99% and mark the risk as mitigated.
We do this because it’s standard due diligence. It feels productive. It creates an auditable paper trail. It satisfies the regulators.
It’s also a trap.
Why the “Safe Move” Is a Liability
This response is dangerously incomplete because it attempts to solve an engineering problem with a compliance fix.
When you rely on “Audit & Train,” you’re betting your organization’s security on a human operator making the perfect decision, 100% of the time, while under pressure. You’re fighting human nature with a memo.
From a systems perspective, it’s irrelevant why the operator fails. They might be tired. They might be new. Or they might simply be a helpful person who was outmaneuvered by a brilliant social engineer creating false urgency.
The root cause isn’t the person. The root cause is a system design that allows a single human decision to be the catastrophic point of failure.
Here’s where the trap closes: You’ve now documented the policy. You’ve trained the team. You’ve reported compliance to the board. And when the breach happens anyway, you’re on record as having known the risk and chosen training over engineering. The very paper trail you created to demonstrate diligence now demonstrates inadequate response.
If your defense relies on a help desk agent spotting a deepfake or resisting a screaming executive, you’ve already lost.
The Mindset Shift: From Compliance to Systems Engineering
We have to stop pretending that “policy” equals “protection.” The shift required is fundamental but straightforward:
The Old Mindset (The Trap): “How do I train my people to follow the rules?”
The New Mindset (The Solution): “How do I engineer a system that protects us even when my people break the rules?”
This pivots the CISO from “compliance manager” to “systems engineer.” The goal is no longer a “trained” workforce; the goal is a resilient system.
The Path Forward: An Active Assurance Model
You don’t need more training slides. You need guardrails. Here’s how an Active Assurance Model changes the playbook:
Stop Auditing, Start Validating. Don’t check if the policy document exists. Check if it works. Run a “Clorox-style” controlled test. Pick up the phone, impersonate an executive, and see if your system holds up. When it fails—and it will—you’ve identified the actual vulnerability, not the documented one. That’s validation.
Stop Training, Start Staging. Don’t just tell people to “be careful.” Stage a technical guardrail. When a password reset request comes in, the system automatically initiates a callback to the employee’s registered mobile number or triggers a manager approval workflow through ServiceNow before any action is taken. The help desk agent never has the authority to bypass this step, regardless of urgency or who’s asking. You’ve engineered the human out of the critical path. That’s defense.
The Takeaway
Your board is demanding assurance, not just a compliance report. Training your team is necessary, but it’s not a control.
A resilient security program is built on defensible systems, not just on perfect people.
In our next post, we’ll cover the CISO’s second trap: “The Change Management Wall” or why the instinct to slow down technical changes in the name of stability often creates the very fragility you’re trying to prevent.
About Accelerynt
Accelerynt is a Microsoft-native security operations company, founded and led by practitioners who’ve built enterprise security programs. We build and run SIEM, MDR, and MSSP programs inside our clients’ Microsoft tenants using Sentinel, Defender, and Entra ID.