Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2022 - See Yourself in Cyber

Since 2004, October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, helping individuals protect themselves online as threats to technology and confidential data become more commonplace. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCA) lead a collaborative effort between government and industry to raise cybersecurity awareness nationally and internationally.?

Cybersecurity Awareness Month Theme - See Yourself in Cyber

This year’s campaign theme —?“See Yourself in Cyber”?— demonstrates that while cybersecurity may seem like a complex subject, ultimately, it’s really all about people. This October will focus on the “people” part of cybersecurity, providing information and resources to help educate CISA partners and the public, and ensure all individuals and organizations make smart decisions whether on the job, at home, or at school – now and in the future. I encourage each of you to engage in this year’s efforts by creating your own cyber awareness campaigns and sharing this messaging with your peers.

• For individuals and families, I encourage you to?See Yourself taking action to stay safe online.?That means enabling basic cyber hygiene practices: update your software, think before you click, have good strong passwords and a password keeper, and enable multi-factor authentication (meaning you need "More Than A Password!") on all your sensitive accounts.?
• For those considering joining the cyber community, I encourage you to?See Yourself joining the cyber workforce.?We'll be talking with leaders from across the country about how we can build a cybersecurity workforce that is bigger, more diverse, and dedicated to solving the problems that will help keep people safe.?
• For partners in the industry, I encourage you to?See Yourself as part of the solution.?That means putting operational collaboration into practice, working together to share information in real-time, reducing risk, and building resilience from the start to protect critical infrastructure and the systems that we rely on every day.?

4 Things You Can Do

Key action steps that everyone should take:

• Think Before You Click: Recognize and Report Phishing:?If a link looks a little off, think before you click. It could be an attempt to get sensitive information or install malware.?
• Update Your Software:?Don't delay -- If you see a software update notification, act promptly. Better yet, turn on automatic updates.
• Use Strong Passwords:?Use passwords that are long, unique, and randomly generated. Use password managers to generate and remember different, complex passwords for each of your accounts. A password manager will encrypt passwords securing them for you!
• Enable Multi-Factor Authentication:?You need more than a password to protect your online accounts, and?enabling MFA makes you significantly less likely to get hacked.

My hope is that this year’s campaign will tighten security at home and across communities and businesses alike. I need your help and the help of your peers. This year’s campaign shares ways to increase resilience against cyber attacks, provide easy-to-use tools to lock down private data and keep assets secure from criminals, terrorists, and foreign entities.

The campaign was created to help impact every individual in your organization, from its top leadership to general support staff and everyone in between. Please share your feedback about the effectiveness of the campaign. Taking the recommended action steps will result in increased cybersecurity for today and the future.