Cyber chat
The other day, I was watching a local junior high school soccer match. One team was advancing down the field as the forward was calling out to his teammates where to go and who to cover. The other team was all crowded together just trying to get the ball. One team was focused on their strategy, while the other team was focused on one short term goal — get the ball. It probably isn’t hard to guess which team came out the victor in that game. The team focused on their short-term goal lost focus on their fundamentals — they didn’t think about what they would do if they got the ball or if their short-term goal wasn’t met and suddenly the ball was in the open field without any defenders helping the goalie.
Cybersecurity is much like that soccer game. If your team is focused on just your short-term goal of preventing phishing attacks or installing the latest data loss tool to prevent sensitive information leaving your network, the likelihood of your cybersecurity program achieving its long-term strategy — perhaps enhancing cyber resiliency — is not very high. If your team focuses all their energy on a single goal of avoiding a cyber incident and not spending any time on your fundamentals, you will ultimately fail. That is why I am starting this new blog series today for Veeam. To help get back to the basics. To have a cyber chat, if you will, as we talk about security topics and how they may relate in your everyday lives.
Cybersecurity Awareness Month
October is traditionally recognized as Cybersecurity Awareness Month for many countries and companies around the globe. For many, this means a month full of speakers, contests, articles, fun videos, games and other activities to engage with employees and have a two-way conversation about cybersecurity. Veeam is no exception as we kick off our own internal competitions and marketing campaigns, aimed at keeping cybersecurity at the top of all our employees’ minds. But, when done right, cybersecurity awareness should not be contained to just one month.
Expanding awareness beyond a single month
At Veeam, we run a highly coordinated, multi-media internal cybersecurity awareness program throughout the year that directly ties back to our internal human cyber risks, key behaviors to mitigate those risks and general overall cyber aptitude. We aim to pull the covers back on the cyber criminals and malicious actors who pose a risk to our company — and expose their plans and methods.
It’s easy to stay safe online
For the month of October, we lean on the great work of the National Cybersecurity Alliance and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA)’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month program to remind all of us that it’s easy to stay safe online. Join me through this blog series as we take some of our own internal messaging and share it with all of you, to get back to the basics and advance our own proverbial soccer ball down the field. Future blog posts this month will focus on:
- Enabling multi-factor authentication
- Using strong passwords and a password manager
- Updating software
- Recognizing and reporting phishing
Future messaging
If there are specific topics you are looking to learn more about, comment on this post so we can be sure this series is helpful for you beyond Cybersecurity Awareness Month. It’s easy to stay safe online if you have a simple cyber chat and head back to the basics.
