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This month is Cyber Security Awareness Month. This is an internationally recognized campaign focused on helping us all be more secure online. So naturally, this edition is all about cyber security.
Data Breaches
With the ever-growing use of the internet, the importance of cyber security has never been higher:
- 聽containing personal and sensitive data were compromised between January 1st, 2017 and March 20th, 2018
- 聽some sort of data breach
- a single data breach will cost the average company about聽
- 聽are due to weak passwords and聽聽the most common forms of attacks still begin with simple phishing emails
The Big Three
Rarely a week passes without news of some data breach that occurred.聽 Just last weekend聽聽and you may recall these massive data breaches:
- 2013 鈥� Yahoo:聽聽were subjected to a data breach. This information came to light while Yahoo was in negotiations to sell itself to Verizon and this incident ended up knocking $350 million off the sale price.
- 2014 鈥� eBay:聽聽were impacted in this breach after hackers had access to the company鈥檚 network for 229 days
- 2017 鈥� Equifax: impacted over聽聽customers and cost the company more than聽聽making it the most costly hack to date
The Future of Cyber Security
The cyber security industry is in great need of experts. The private, public and governmental sectors are all investing heavily in attracting and retaining cyber security talent; the proof is in the numbers:
- The demand for cyber talent in Canada is increasing by聽
- Unfilled cyber security jobs are expected to reach聽聽鈥� compared to about 1 million in 2016.
- 聽is what organizations plan to spend on cybersecurity in 2020 alone
- 杏吧原创 University offers聽program options, including a聽
Cyber Security: Our Shared Responsibility
We all have a shared responsibility when it comes to protecting our devices, networks, and data. 聽Here are some simple things you can do:
- Protect your accounts with strong authentication.聽 Create a strong password (try using pass phrases as opposed to words), have separate passwords for every account, and use two-factor authentication wherever possible.
- Beware the phish:聽Beware of emails that ask for your password, have a call for immediate action, or offer something that sounds too good to be true.
- Back it up:聽Protect your work, music, photos and other digital information by making an electronic copy and storing it safely.
5 Things we Thought you Should Know
- We鈥檙e moving from Banner 8 to聽.
- Coffee Break with Web Services聽took place yesterday,聽here鈥檚 a recap.
- We鈥檝e launched a new weekly video series called聽.
- We鈥檝e completed our two-factor authentication pilot.
- We have a new president, and聽he has a blog.