Cybersecurity Awareness Month - IT Leaders Speak

October is the Cybersecurity Awareness Month. On this occasion, some IT leaders have sent their comments.

"It may be 18 years since the launch of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, but the need for awareness about it has increased manifold now more than ever. Since 2020 the rapid and hurried need to introduce newer and better cybersecurity details in their organisation caught everyone by surprise as only a few were ready to function remotely on a large scale. Things are now changing for the better, yet not at the speed and advancement necessary. However, awareness campaigns like these will certainly boost the knowledge needed among the C-Suite across verticals – banking, healthcare, education etc to implement stringent cybersecurity norms in their organisation. While earlier there was just a need for implementing cybersecurity solutions, later came the necessity of educating the people in the organization, now organizations are training their employees about cybersecurity awareness in terms of implementation, detection, etc. This is more helpful with a united front to fight cyber crimes that have increased due to the gaps in security created due to remote working. Unsafe practices, vulnerable networks and internet connections and internal threats are all the reasons why employees must be prepared to be fighters of cybercrimes. Insider threats are now the biggest reason for worry as knowingly or unknowingly security is breached and consequences need to be faced by the organization and the responsible employees. Hence it is very much necessary for organisations to implement Zero Trust, MFA, Password Protection and other security measures to fight cybersecurity breach and create awareness around cybersecurity.”

--Subodh Anchan, Director – VP Alliance, iValue InfoSolutions

“SMBs form a huge chunk of India’s economy and cybercriminals are targeting the SMBs. According to a recent study, 74% of SMBs were targeted by cyberthreats in the last one year and it cost 62% of the businesses Rs 3.5Cr. Organizations are yet to update their cybersecurity awareness measures to the needed standard in order to protect themselves from cybercriminals. It is not just the organizations, event government web portals and offices too need to keep their systems secure. But with cyber threats growing every year, a robust solution needs to meet them head-on and cybersecurity can’t solely depend on anti-virus and network solutions. Secure hardware options too are necessary in keeping cybersecurity measures robust. With hardware and software-based security features built into the KVM units, businesses, military, intelligence, and federal agency installations can rest assured that their data is being protected on both physical and digital levels. It is necessary that organizations have a 360 degree approach and ensure cybersecurity measures are enforced.”

--Vittal Salunke, Business Head, ATEN Advance 

“Every year October marks the beginning of National Cyber Security Awareness Month. It was launched by the National Cyber Security Alliance and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in October 2004 as a broad effort to stay safer and more secure online. It raises awareness about cyber security best practices and stresses the collective effort needed to prevent cyber intrusions and scams. With the stark rise in phishing attacks and cyberattacks now occurring every 39 seconds, Cyber Security Awareness Month has become more crucial than ever.

National Cyber Security Awareness Month brings the perfect time to implement some basic practices that we should each be taking to safeguard our privacy and valuable digital assets. Here are some tips and tricks that we can follow to avoid cyber victims.

• Keeping a unique password for each account is the best way to protect our password. We can also use a passphrase, hard to remember but even harder to hack.
• Reports says “Every day nearly 3 billion fake emails are sent”. Never attend to such mail until and unless you can recognize them as secured senders.
• Always use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) when connecting to an untrusted network.
• Set up multifactor authentication for financial or other sensitive account log-ins
• Anti-virus products and firewalls are said to be “the guard” of a computer system. It is crucially important to regularly update antivirus and antispyware software on every computer”

--Amit Singh, General Manager, Security Business Unit, TechnoBind

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