Cybersecurity Awareness Month Should Have 365 Days

Don Miller

Every year in October, the U.S. federal government, via the Department of Homeland Security, pushes “Cybersecurity Awareness Month.” A campaign devoted entirely to cybersecurity awareness is a great concept. For an entire month, DHS and private industry organize events and share ideas to better ensure cybersecurity for all.

But sometimes I wonder about the effectiveness of Cybersecurity Awareness Month and whether all the great information generated around the campaign is retained and/or put into practice. So, I decided to do a little research to see what others have said about the campaign.

I didn’t have to look long before I found an article containing results of some rudimentary research relating to the effectiveness of last year’s campaign. The bio of the article’s author says he is “widely recognized as an expert in all aspects of cybersecurity” and the title of his piece is: “Few people know it’s National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. That’s a problem.” The title basically tells you what he found.  

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I came across another article published last week discussing a presentation given by the executive director of the Streaming Video Alliance (SVA). He is bemoaning the fact that “as over-the-top (OTT) streaming video continues to gain in popularity, it’s a prime target for pirates.” To protect OTT content, he recommended using a “layered” approach to cybersecurity.

MFT Nation agrees wholeheartedly with developing a “layered” approach to cybersecurity. But that concept is neither new nor revolutionary. bTrade’s MFT Nation published an article in 2015 in which we recommended layered security methods. And we weren’t being new or revolutionary either because the 2015 article cited an informative publication from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission which has a section captioned “Create Layers of Security” that says the following, among other things: “Protecting data, like any other security challenge, is about creating layers of protection.”

The byline in the article mentioned above by the guy who’s “widely recognized as an expert in all aspects of cybersecurity,” reads: “National Cybersecurity Awareness Month has failed to gain national, industry or cybersecurity community attention. It’s time to rally around it or kill it.” We disagree. Even assuming the truth of what he says, it never hurts to focus on and discuss cybersecurity, even if it’s only for one month out of the year, and even if people are rehashing cybersecurity topics covered in previous years. At a minimum, it gets people to think and talk about cybersecurity, which may result in some folks developing a plan which can be put into practice with the help of appropriate resources.

If you want to learn more about developing “layers” of data security, including how a managed file transfer solution can help, please contact our data security experts at info@btrade.com for a free consultation.