Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Cybersecurity First
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month. This was established 18 years ago by the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and each week focuses on a new cybersecurity related theme. The focus for the final week of the month is “Cybersecurity First”.
Per CISA, cybersecurity is the art of protecting networks, devices, and data from unlawful access or criminal use and the practice of guaranteeing confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information. Nowadays just about every industry from healthcare to retail to communication and transportation rely on computers and the Internet. Your personal and your company’s proprietary information are stored on smartphones, tablets, computers, and other devices. Protecting that information is of the highest importance to both parties.
Cybersecurity starts with you. Every time you use the Internet you are making choices related to cybersecurity from the websites you frequent, the links you click, and the information you provide. You determine whether to use wireless networks that may or may not be secure. The safety of your personal information and your company’s data depends on you making secure decisions while online. Your company can put various protections in place, but ultimately, any company’s biggest cybersecurity risk is its employees. Many companies provide routine security awareness training to assist employees in identifying phishing and vishing attacks. These basic security awareness techniques can lessen the risk for a company to be affected by an employee clicking on a malicious link or attachment. These same techniques can be applied to your personal devices and information.
Cybersecurity Protection
As ransomware, breaches, and other cyberattacks continue to grow, the need for cybersecurity protection becomes ever more important. Attackers use a variety of methods to compromise network and device security. They continue to come up with new methods to do so as companies mitigate current known vulnerabilities. To effectively protect your networks, it is key to become familiar with, and stay up to date on, cybersecurity threats and security technology. If your security defense strategy is not continually changing then your security could be less than effective against new vulnerabilities and threats.
McKonly & Asbury can assist your company in managing cybersecurity threats by performing a SOC for Cybersecurity engagement to identify whether effective processes and controls are in place and provide you with recommendations to detect, respond to, and mitigate and recover from breaches and other cybersecurity events. Please reach out to David Hammarberg leader of the firm’s SOC, Cybersecurity, Forensic Examination, and Information Technology practices at dhammarberg@macpas.com. We can answer any questions and help you determine if a SOC for Cybersecurity report would be useful for your company.
About the Author
Lynnanne joined McKonly & Asbury in 2018 and is currently a Principal with the firm. She is a key member of our firm’s System and Organization Controls (SOC) Practice, preparing SOC 1, SOC 2, and SOC 3 reports for our clients. She holds th… Read more
