Ask any IT security professional and you’ll get the same answer. One of the biggest cybersecurity challenges is the human factor, making cybersecurity awareness more vital than ever in our mobilized, interconnected world.

According to the 2014 Cyber Security Intelligence Index, an astounding 95 percent of all security incidents involve human error. The most prevalent mistake? Double clicking on an infected attachment or unsafe URL. Other common errors include lack of patching, using default user names and passwords and easy-to-guess passwords, lost laptops and mobile devices, and inadvertent disclosure of sensitive information by use of an incorrect email address.

Support and Participate in National Cybersecurity Awareness Month

All the more reason to support and participate in National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, which is observed in October in the U.S., with similar months or weeks set aside in other countries. Cybersecurity awareness events like these are valuable opportunities to shine a spotlight on what it means to be aware and how to promote not only knowledge, but deliberate, mindful behavior to actively protect valuable data and information in our businesses and communities.

What is cybersecurity awareness? It’s not just knowledge. Knowing isn’t doing. Security awareness is knowledge combined with attitudes and behaviors that serve to protect our information assets. Being cybersecurity aware means you understand what the threats are and you take the right steps to prevent them.

At IBM, we work to create a risk-aware culture where employees are educated about the cybersecurity hazards we face and trained to take the right actions to defend against them. Training courses, simulated phishing exercises, awareness campaigns, videos and a steady stream of awareness messaging and social media conversations are some of the ways we work to keep cybersecurity top of mind among IBMers.

For our families and communities, we encourage employees to visit the StaySafeOnline and Stop.Think.Connect websites to cultivate cyber awareness at home and in their neighborhoods. StaySafeOnline offers tips and resources, including content for teaching cybersecurity to students from kindergarten through college. The Stop.Think.Connect. site offers information on how to protect our digital lives online.

Internet Safety: Time to Stop Kidding Around?

We’re all in this together, and each of us has a stake in reducing human error and encouraging cybersecurity best practices in our workplaces, homes and communities. Help spread the word to promote a safer, more productive digital experience for all of us.

More from CISO

How to Solve the People Problem in Cybersecurity

You may think this article is going to discuss how users are one of the biggest challenges to cybersecurity. After all, employees are known to click on unverified links, download malicious files and neglect to change their passwords. And then there are those who use their personal devices for business purposes and put the network at risk. Yes, all those people can cause issues for cybersecurity. But the people who are usually blamed for cybersecurity issues wouldn’t have such an…

The Cyber Battle: Why We Need More Women to Win it

It is a well-known fact that the cybersecurity industry lacks people and is in need of more skilled cyber professionals every day. In 2022, the industry was short of more than 3 million people. This is in the context of workforce growth by almost half a million in 2021 year over year per recent research. Stemming from the lack of professionals, diversity — or as the UN says, “leaving nobody behind” — becomes difficult to realize. In 2021, women made…

Backdoor Deployment and Ransomware: Top Threats Identified in X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2023

Deployment of backdoors was the number one action on objective taken by threat actors last year, according to the 2023 IBM Security X-Force Threat Intelligence Index — a comprehensive analysis of our research data collected throughout the year. Backdoor access is now among the hottest commodities on the dark web and can sell for thousands of dollars, compared to credit card data — which can go for as low as $10. On the dark web — a veritable eBay for…

Detecting the Undetected: The Risk to Your Info

IBM’s Advanced Threat Detection and Response Team (ATDR) has seen an increase in the malware family known as information stealers in the wild over the past year. Info stealers are malware with the capability of scanning for and exfiltrating data and credentials from your device. When executed, they begin scanning for and copying various directories that usually contain some sort of sensitive information or credentials including web and login data from Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge. In other instances, they…