October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month

October is upon us and once again it's Cybersecurity Awareness Month.  This is the 16th year of this annual event.  Cybersecurity Awareness Month is a world-wide initiative, observed in over 34 countries world-wide. 

The core theme this year is "Own IT, Secure IT, Protect IT", and is a shift from previous years.  We will have a LOT of new material for you this year with a lot of the resources we provide suitable for sharing with family members.  We will be distributing many of these resources to you in our twice-weekly emails and will be providing additional information and resources on this site.  Please remember that you are free, and in fact encouraged, to share he resources we provide you as part of Cybersecurity Awareness Month with friends, family, etc. 

Why do we put so much emphasis o Cybersecurity Awareness Month each year?  Well, consider the following:

• In the 2018 Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) Cybersecurity Survey Report, 40% of the respondents reported suffering cyberattacks in a span of 12 months, while 10% reported suffering frequent attacks — 20 or more incidents in a 12-month period.
• In the US in 2019:
  • 49 School Districts / Higher Ed institutions fell victim to ransomware.
  • Education is second only to municipalities (70 attacks) in the number of ransomware attacks.
• Higher Ed in Canada IS a target:
  • August 2017: MacEwan University defrauded of 11.8 million through phishing emails.
  • March 2017: Carleton University discovers key loggers on its network
  • June 2016: University of Calgary paid $20,000 in ransom as a result of a data breach.
  • Hacker groups, possibly sponsored by a nation state, are currently targeting the research and library resources of Canadian and American universities.

With the cyber criminals trying so hard to take advantage of our work and our personal Internet connected devices and accounts we have to be vigilant. Cybersecurity Awareness Month exists to update us on new tactics the bad guys are trying as well as remind us all of the good practices we should be following.

 Please keep an eye on these pages as October rolls on...I think you'll find the resources we post informative and (hopefully!) entertaining as well.