Most employees breeze through cybersecurity awareness modules the way they skip through software Terms & Conditions: scroll, scroll, scroll — “I agree.”
Tick the box. Move on with your day. Job done.
But what if hidden inside the T&Cs — or your security training — was the equivalent of Van Halen’s infamous brown M&Ms clause?
Would anyone even notice?
The Wi-Fi Example: People Will Sign Anything
Years ago, a security experiment in London tricked public Wi-Fi users into agreeing to a clause that required them to give up their first-born child in exchange for internet access.
And people clicked “Accept.” Of course they did.
We laugh, but this is precisely the problem: If no one reads the small print, the small print is useless as a control.
So What Does a Rock Band Have to Do With Cybersecurity?
Van Halen’s contract rider included the now-legendary request:
“A bowl of M&Ms with all the brown ones removed.”
For decades, this was held up as proof of rockstar ego — extravagance, whimsy, a splash of diva behaviour.
The truth was far more pragmatic.
Van Halen’s stage productions were intensely technical. Pyrotechnics, lighting rigs, and complex electrical systems — all of which had to be set up correctly to avoid catastrophic failure. The band used the “brown M&Ms test” as an early-warning detection mechanism.
If they walked backstage and saw brown M&Ms still in the bowl, it meant the venue likely hadn’t read the contract thoroughly — including the critical safety sections.
Brown M&Ms = noncompliance indicator.
Cybersecurity Has Its Own Brown M&Ms
Your organisation has its own equivalents:
- Odd clauses in data-processing agreements
- Subtle requirements in supplier security questionnaires
- “Check-that-you’re-paying-attention” details in awareness training
- Critical threat intelligence indicators buried in a weekly briefing
- MITRE ATT&CK techniques mentioned once and never revisited
- A single unusual permission request in a SaaS onboarding workflow
Most people skim straight past them.
And in cybersecurity, skipping the details isn’t just careless. It’s dangerous.
The Illusion of Engagement vs. Real Due Diligence
Now, it’s time for your reality test. Just consider how many employees:
- Click through training just to reach the quiz
- Guess their way through the questions
- Assume “IT has it covered”
- Accept permissions without reading the prompt
- Approve vendor access without checking scopes
- Miss a clearly suspicious indicator in a threat intelligence report because “it looks technical”
We build entire programs on the assumption that users will pay attention. But Van Halen understood something the cybersecurity world often forgets:
Attention is not a given. You have to test for it.
Easter Eggs for Security Maturity
Imagine if your cybersecurity training had a clause:
“For proof you’ve read this, email the security team a photo of a rubber duck.”
You would instantly know who skimmed and who actually engaged.
The point isn’t the duck (or the M&Ms).
The point is verification.
Security culture depends on whether people read, understand, and internalize information, rather than simply completing a module.
Threat Intelligence Is Also a Contract
Most organisations receive high-quality threat intelligence and treat it like Van Halen’s technical rider: dense, detailed, long, boring… and largely unread.
But threat intel is full of critical brown-M&M signals:
- A single domain that shows early-stage targeting
- A quiet shift in TTPs that indicates increased sophistication
- A subtle misconfiguration spotted across peer organisations
- A new exploit path emerging in an adjacent industry
If you’re not reading it, you’re not preparing. If you’re skimming it, you’re guessing. And guessing is the opposite of security.
The Real Lesson: Control What You Can Measure
Van Halen’s trick worked because it created a visible, binary, irrefutable signal.
Cybersecurity needs more of these:
- Proof-of-read indicators in critical policies
- Engagement checkpoints in awareness content
- Fallback validation steps for privileged access
- Small but intentional anomalies in processes that reveal who’s paying attention
- Human-readiness tests built into your incident response playbooks
Done right, these become not gimmicks but diagnostics.
So Ask Yourself (and Your Team):
- Would you catch the brown M&Ms?
- Would your employees?
- Would your vendors?
- Would your executive team?
- Would your SOC?
A spectacular failure rarely undoes security. It’s undone by the unseen details nobody bothered to read.
Van Halen understood that. Maybe it’s time we did too.
Dan Raywood is a cybersecurity journalist, writing for several leading publications and regularly appears on TV and radio over the past 17 years. He has also spoken at industry events including 44CON, Irisscon and Infosecurity Europe, and has worked as both an analyst and a product marketing lead for a major vendor.
Anastasios Arampatzis is a cybersecurity content strategist, writer, and consultant with expertise in cybersecurity, digital identity, and regulatory compliance. Tassos has a strong background in creating thought leadership content, marketing materials, and strategic communications tailored to CISOs, security professionals, and business leaders. He has contributed to various cybersecurity publications and collaborates with organizations to develop compelling, insightful content that addresses industry challenges. He is a privacy advocate and a member of the ISC2 Hellenic Chapter. Before joining Bora, Tassos was an Hellenic Air Force Officer with a solid background on IT and Infosec.
The opinions expressed in this post belong to the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Information Security Buzz.