October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month

Take some time to protect your digital assets.

Though we cannot advise you on how to celebrate all of the scintillating holidays happening in October (National Produce Misting Day anyone?), we do want to invite you to observe one of them along with us – Cybersecurity Awareness Month.

The National Cybersecurity Alliance and the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are celebrating 20 years of keeping us all just a little bit safer through Cybersecurity Awareness month. This year, the cybersecurity community is focusing on four key behaviors that can make an enormous difference in the risk profile of businesses and individuals across the country.

1. Use strong passwords and a password manager.

Password1 will not cut it any more. However Q$Tda42%b1!xy145Fl10 is also really hard to remember (and no, you should not write it down on a post-it note near your keyboard). Enter password managers. These important software solutions help you generate and keep track of strong passwords. You can learn more about password security in our recent post.

2. Turn on multifactor authentication (aka MFA or 2FA).

Even better than a password is a passkey. You likely already use MFA to access online banking or financial accounts. Using a text message, email, or (best of all) a dedicated authenticator app to validate a sign-in is the easiest step you can take to secure your accounts with one of the biggest payoffs.

3. Recognize and report phishing.

We spend a lot of time harping on the importance of recognizing and avoiding phishing attacks. Their prevalence means that they are a constant threat to everyone with an email account. You can learn more about how to protect yourself by perusing the “Phishing Reports” in the cybersecurity section of our blog.

4. Update software.

Outdated software is often full of holes that provide easy entry points for hackers into your business network. Keeping it updated makes sure that you have the most recent and secure version of the software that keeps your business running.