October is Cyber-Security Awareness Month

Doug Graham, Senior Director, Global Security Office – EMC IT wrote about how Getting Free-Thinkers to Pay Attention to Cyber-Security. Cyber-security is becoming more and more important today, with security breaches happening more frequently. Companies such as Adobe, Middle Eastern banks and oil companies, even the RedBull F1 Team have been subjected to attacks in recent months. Here are some of his thoughts on promoting cyber-security awareness:

While setting aside a month to promote cyber security may not seem like the most hard-hitting tool to tighten security for your organization, it actually is a great opportunity to do just that. That’s because more than ever cyber security is all about peoples’ behavior and raising awareness is one of the best ways to have an impact on that.

What we have come to realize in IT security is that policy, compliance and governance alone won’t achieve cyber security for your organization unless people take those policies and rules and use them to make the right security decisions. The reality is that whether it’s people in their homes or in the workplace, we depend on individual behaviors to safeguard IT security—or anything else for that matter. If you don’t lock your door, people can walk straight into your house. If you leave your car unlocked, there’s a greater chance it —or something in it— will get stolen.

If you look at why people behave the way they do, it’s really because of a few particular things. First, attitude is a predictor of future behavior, so your end users’ attitude toward cyber security is important. And since you can’t have an attitude towards something unless you have some kind of knowledge and awareness about it, educating end users about cyber security issues is fundamentally important.

You can read the full blog post here.