National Cyber Security Awareness Month

October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Cyber Security Alliance launched National Cyber Security Awareness Month as a broad effort to help Americans stay safe and secure online. The threat landscape has exponentially grown since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, so this year it is particularly appropriate to check your cyber health.

Current Topics and Trends:

• Approx 400% Increase in attacks since Covid
• Ransomware attacks up - payments may be illegal
• New law on cyber security for small businesses coming

Cyber security at EXP:

At EXP, keeping our clients safe is our top priority. We manage a proactive program where we match each client to a  base cyber security checklist  (Basic, Medium and High depending on their size and compliance profile) with prioritized objectives for each level. The broad categories are:

• Identity & Access - ensure that only authorized users can access systems on a "least privilege" basis.
• Device Management - ensure that devices are pre-authorized for access and can be effectively managed remotely.
• Policies, procedures & training - ensure written documentation and mandatory end-user training programs are in place.
• Threat Protection  - proactively protect against attack with anti-virus, anti-phishing measure etc.
• Data Loss Prevention - stop unauthorized data leakage with email and storage based policies.

Please contact one of our CISSP  (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) staff for more information on how we can help you implement a "right-sized" cyber security program.  Pat Cooke, CISSP leads our security practice and will be happy to discuss the best approach for your company.