Getting Ready for October Awareness Month

As some of you may already know, October is National Cyber Security Awareness month in the United States. Led by the National Cyber Security Alliance, and co-sponsored by MS-ISAC and DHS, the goal is to make the United States public aware of cyber security issues and how to better protect themselves. This October will be the 9th anniversary of the event. In addition, ENISA is looking to expand Security Awareness month to Europe. As such, October is the perfect time to add new features to your awareness program, reinforce key points, or perhaps even kick off your awareness program if you do not currently have one. Here are some ideas to consider. Survey: Conduct a security awareness survey to see just how aware your organization is. These can often be a big eye opener for management. Never done one before, grab a free survey template from our site. Challenge: Why not have a challenge and get your employees involved. Perhaps something like a sticker or mascot challenge. Have people submit ideas for sticker slogans, name for a security mascot, or some other project. Then award a prize, perhaps such as a raffle for an iPad. Great way to engage people. Never done one before? No problem, check out our Sticker Challenge kit that gives you some ideas you can use.Lunch-n-Learn: Free food is a great way to bring people together. Why not buy some sandwiches or pizza from a local restaurant and then have a presentation that focuses on how to people can protect their home computers, their home networks and their kids online. This is a powerful way to engage people and most of the lessons learned apply to your organization. Best of all people will leave wanting to learn more. For presentation ideas check out our Presentation Resources section. What ideas are you or your organization considering?