A Systemic Perspective to the Human Firewall Problem (HFP): The AwAKE Approach

10 pages•Published: November 6, 2025

Giuliano Pozza, Filippo Colombo, Alberto Frati and Carmelo Andrea Scordino

Abstract

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (UCSC), being a university and part of the Catholic ecosystem, experiments constantly a high level of cyber risk exposure in a complex, multi-cultural and heterogeneous environment. The challenge is to dramatically improve the performance of the “Human Firewall”, thus extending the reach of cybersecurity professionals and improving UCSC security posture. The journey started with a first group of “Security Ambassadors”, a sort of “volunteer firemen” able to support the professional IT security expert. Along the way, several initiatives to improve Awareness, Abilities, Knowledge and Emotional Engagement (AwAKE approach) were launched, with proved outcomes. Currently, we are working to expand the use of emotional engagement techniques to capture the attention of refractory users. Specifically, spatial computing technologies, AI and simulation/gamification approaches are used to capture the attention and emotions of unapproachable users.

Keyphrases: awake approach, cybersecurity awareness, human firewall concept, physical & virtual escape rooms, security ambassador community

In: Laurence Desnos, Raimund Vogl, Lazaros Merakos, Carmen Diaz, Janina Mincer-Daszkiewicz and Stuart Mclellan (editors). Proceedings of EUNIS 2025 annual congress in Belfast, vol 107, pages 88-97.

Links:	https://easychair.org/publications/paper/H9Z29
	https://doi.org/10.29007/kvlb

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{EUNIS2025:Systemic_Perspective_Human_Firewall,
  author    = {Giuliano Pozza and Filippo Colombo and Alberto Frati and Carmelo Andrea Scordino},
  title     = {A Systemic Perspective to the Human Firewall Problem (HFP): The AwAKE Approach},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of EUNIS 2025 annual congress in Belfast},
  editor    = {Laurence Desnos and Raimund Vogl and Lazaros Merakos and Carmen Diaz and Janina Mincer-Daszkiewicz and Stuart Mclellan},
  series    = {EPiC Series in Computing},
  volume    = {107},
  publisher = {EasyChair},
  bibsource = {EasyChair, https://easychair.org},
  issn      = {2398-7340},
  url       = {/publications/paper/H9Z29},
  doi       = {10.29007/kvlb},
  pages     = {88-97},
  year      = {2025}}

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