Empowering Secure Communities: A Look into Cybersecurity Awareness Month '23

We have a day or a month for everything these days. Given that we’re in the business of providing IT Consulting, Implementation, Management and Support services, I’m happy there's a month dedicated to Cybersecurity Awareness. I’m a little disappointed that we live in a world where we need a Cybersecurity Awareness month but that’s another blog post for another day. 

In researching the background of Cybersecurity Awareness Month for this blog article, I discovered that it was established in 2004 to "raise awareness about digital security and empower everyone to protect their personal data from digital forms of crime¹”. By then, the writing had been on the wall for some time, and I believe those who created this month of awareness recognized the need to provide those of us working in the industry with the information and frameworks we would need to keep our families, communities, workplaces, and ourselves safe.

Since then, information technology has grown in pervasiveness, power, and complexity, and this trend is expected to continue. Every day, someone creates or discovers something new, and the world we live in becomes more intricate and indecipherable to the average person. Concurrently, these technologies have been and continue to be interwoven into our daily lives, going beyond the initial promise of technology making our lives easier. We've long passed the point where using technology is no longer just the easiest option, but increasingly the only option.

Because we must engage with and use technology for everything, the majority of which involve paying for goods and services or receiving payment for goods and services, bad actors have a strong motivation to target these systems. In a specific way, it's become much easier for criminals to steal because they can do so from the comfort of their homes, no longer needing to travel out into the world to pull off their bad deeds, and much work is dedicated toward finding and exploiting flaws in the technology we use. I addressed it briefly in my previous post, The Importance of Regular IT Maintenance & Updates.

So, the de facto "good guys" must spend time and resources defending these networks, especially for people who use them because they have to and have little grasp of how it all works. This has always been a core promise of technology. Technology is science applied in a way that delivers significant advantages to the user/operator without requiring extensive knowledge of the core mechanics and systems. This is why we can learn to drive and run a car safely for years without having to be a mechanical engineer or know how to design and maintain an internal combustion engine or steering and suspension systems.

I particularly like this year's theme: Secure Our World²” because now, for the 20th Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the focus is on, what I like to refer to as, cybersecurity fundamentals. In my next post, I’ll discuss why the fundamentals of information security remain as important now as they always were and how we can rely on them to minimize our personal exposure. 

At Invizio we understand that your computers, networks, and devices are tools you use to do your best work. It’s important to make sure that they work in a safe, reliable manner. We help our clients reduce their exposure by making sure that important software updates are installed promptly and performing automatic routine maintenance tasks that help with overall network and system performance. Our fully ManagedIT service might be just what you need for your company or organization. 

Have a question (or two)? Reach out to our team at solutions@invizio.com

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¹ National Cybersecurity Alliance - https://staysafeonline.org/programs/cybersecurity-awareness-month/ - Retrieved October 4, 2023.

²Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency - https://www.cisa.gov/cybersecurity-awareness-month - Retrieved October 4, 2023.

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