Make The Most Of National Cyber Security Awareness Month

NCSAM is a catalyst to get extra attention for your security programs

Ira Winkler, Field CISO & Vice President, CYE

October 1, 2013

2 Min Read
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An awareness month can bring with it many benefits. When you think about some of the wildly successful awareness months, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month comes to mind. Associated efforts include fundraising walks and Delta Airlines repaints some of its planes pink. Events take place throughout the country and a good portion of the world. But there is nothing otherwise special about the month -- except that it serves as a rallying cry for people to take action.

Now, as the 10th anniversary of National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) begins today, it's time to take advantage of the benefits that it similarly offers. While it might not be a standard practice to normally devote attention to information security, security awareness practitioners can now contend that extra corporate attention should be placed on your efforts.

It is a good time to let rally extra support from management to put on events, get permission to set up awareness booths, pass out literature, get space on corporate intranet sites, send out extra messages to the staff, etc. NCSAM is a catalyst to get extra attention for your programs, which is another way of saying that you get more awareness for your awareness campaign.

If you have already started planning, try to make the most of it. If you haven't yet put something together, now is the time to try to get started. If you are short on resources, we put together an NCSAM Support Packagethat provides a turnkey NCSAM program.

While it is not likely that anyone will be repainting an airplane to support our cause, there is still a lot of support to be had. Take advantage of the momentum. More important, make sure that you keep the momentum going after the month is over.

Ira Winkler is president of Secure Mentem

About the Author

Ira Winkler

Field CISO & Vice President, CYE

Ira Winkler, CISSP, is the Director of the Human Security Engineering Consortium and author of the books You Can Stop Stupid and Security Awareness for Dummies. He is considered one of the world’s most influential security professionals and was named “The Awareness Crusader” by CSO Magazine in receiving its CSO COMPASS Award. He has designed, implemented, and supported security awareness programs at organizations of all sizes, in all industries, around the world. Ira began his career at the National Security Agency, where he served in various roles as an Intelligence and Computer Systems Analyst. He has since served in other positions supporting the cybersecurity programs in organizations of all sizes.

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