Cyber spook!

October!! It’s where the temperatures drop fast and one day it’s summer and it feels like the sun is beating its rays into your core, heating you from the inside out; to the next, where only wearing a beanie and having a sweatshirt and blanket at work can help suffice the cold from where the sun rays were and because brrrr, cold temperatures. It’s where all things start to become more spooky and your neighbors might be getting ready for Halloween and decorations are making their way out of their own hiding spots. But October is not only a spooky good time, it also marks month of awareness for cybersecurity and to keep yourself safe online.

I could go off and ramble a whole bunch of ways to keep your organization and yourself safe online, but will you truly remember them all? So, to kick off this fun month, I shall only throw a couple at you at a time. With accordance to NCA (National Cybersecurity Agency) and CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) keeping with the 2024 campaign focus, the four key components and behaviors of this years cybersecurity awareness is: Using strong, unique passwords, passcodes and password managers.

Use that nifty little MFA (multi-factor authentication) resource across all of your accounts.

Keeping your software up-to-date. Report those pesky phishing (no not trout or bass fishing) emails and the like.

I get that you have heard all of these before, but honestly they are the first line of defense that you have in keeping your accounts safe. These are things YOU get to control, what YOU get to manage and make a stronghold around YOUR cyberself. Anyone who has made an account somewhere online or surfs the web regularly, makes an online purchase and so forth all have a cyber presence that can and most likely, unfortunately, get exploited from malicious, or bad, actors (nope, not the actors we see on our screens). Keeping a strong and unique password for every single account online is daunting, but makes it so much harder for those “bad actors” to move through your cyber landscape and disrupt your world. Believe me, I know it is such a pain but keeping separate, unique, strong passwords and passcodes are a first MUST. And that goes for the password manager too. Make sure you do your research when selecting a password manager.

Use that MFA - multi-factor authentication. You know when you make an account or go into your settings in said account, you might have noticed the letters MFA. Click into and set it up. It is another way to thwart the “bad actors” from accessing your accounts. Metaphorically, it is another line of defense you have. Sometimes the hackers can break your password/passcode because, well, some have a same or similar password for all accounts. That is dangerous! But sometimes those hackers, “bad actors” use tools to help break passwords/ passcodes to get into your accounts. Hypothetically, if they could break or brute force your password/passcode, then get a multi-factor authentication pop-up stating to submit a code that was sent to your phone, they would come up to a road block and possibly give up since it is not as easy as they would hope. One thing about bad, malicious actors/hackers is they don’t give up easily.

Next week we will pick up where I left off to continue building your defenses up against those who want to infiltrate them. In the meantime, stay spooky and safe.

SEEKING

W

ONDER

BY

SAMANTHA Y OCIUS CREATIVE MEDIA