It’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and whether you’re still figuring out what you want to do in the future or already in your perfect career, there’s no better time to brush up on your cyber skills.
That’s because all the firewalls, antivirus tools and other hardware and software deterrents aren’t necessarily enough. According to IBM, 95% of all successful cyberattacks can be traced back to human error.
Whether you’re an employee, an entrepreneur or anything else, successful defence against cyber threats starts with YOU.
So, What Is Cybersecurity?
The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) defines cybersecurity as the act of individuals and organisations reducing the risk of a cyberattack. That means protecting devices, networks and services from breaches.
Passwords, two-factor authentication and various other tools prevent data and personal information from falling into the wrong hands, and it’s a vital consideration at home as much as at work.
If someone hacks your Twitter account and reads your DMs or posts without your knowledge, that’s a cybersecurity breach. The same applies if they gain access to your online banking, but with potentially more expensive consequences.
Workplaces are home to all sorts of confidential information and vital systems. That doesn’t just mean people breaking into servers and reading emails they shouldn’t, either.
A cyberattack can quickly take down a website, and if that’s an integral part of a business, it can be extremely costly. Expenses remain essentially the same, but interrupted cash flow can be challenging to recover from.
Smaller businesses are the ones that suffer the most, as they might not have the resources to skip a day. That’s without considering the costs of recovery. A typical cyber attack recovery plan costs small businesses over £20,000. That’s the kind of cost that can be difficult to account for, especially when it’s unexpected, and the company effectively gets nothing in return.
The Cybersecurity Basics
Personal cybersecurity starts with taking responsibility. Most digital services you use take steps to ensure that accounts are protected, but there are limits to what they can do.
If you always operate under the assumption that your personal cybersecurity is your responsibility, you stand the best possible chance of keeping your accounts secure.
We’ll be going into more depth on what you can do later in the series, but for now, you can immediately boost your defences by:
- Ensuring you make a point of keeping software up to date across computers, phones and tablets
- Adding two-factor authentication wherever available (take a look at the 2FA Directory to see which services support it)
- Use a password manager like LastPass or Keychain, or the one built into your web browser to ensure strong, unique passwords across every site you use – and don’t forget to use 2FA on your password management account!
As Cybersecurity Awareness Month continues, we’ll have more tips, insight into how robust cyber defences will impact your career and expert insight from cybersecurity professionals on implementing cybersecurity in your work and considering it as a career, so stay tuned!
