For the past 17 years, National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM) has been informing Americans on the best ways to protect themselves from cyber attacks. This year’s theme, “Do Your Part. #BeCyberSmart.” comes at a time when millions of people are working from home and may be more susceptible to an online threat. Now is a great time to secure your home and work devices from attack.
Over the next few weeks, NCSAM and the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) will have different themes you can follow along with (week 3 is Securing Internet-Connected Devices in Healthcare), or you can see their resources all at one time. Here is a sample from their Tip Sheet on “5 Ways to be Cyber Secure at Work”:
- Treat business information as personal information. Business information typically includes a mix of personal and proprietary data. While you may think of trade secrets and company credit accounts, it also includes employee personally identifiable information (PII) through tax forms and payroll accounts. Do not share PII with unknown parties or over unsecured networks.
- Be up to date. Keep your software updated to the latest version available. Maintain your security settings to keeping your information safe by turning on automatic updates so you don’t have to think about it and set your security software to run regular scans.
- It only takes one time. Data breaches do not typically happen when a cybercriminal has hacked into an organization’s infrastructure. Many data breaches can be traced back to a single security vulnerability, phishing attempt, or instance of accidental exposure. Be wary of unusual sources, do not click on unknown links, and delete suspicious messages immediately. For more information about email and phishing scams see the Phishing Tip Sheet.
To see all the tips and additional resources, please visit https://www.cisa.gov/national-cyber-security-awareness-month.