Happy Cybersecurity Awareness Month?

As October begins, we in New England look forward to fall foliage, warm days and cool nights.  Aside from orange and bright red leaves here in Massachusetts, everyone will see a prominent display of the color pink as October is also breast cancer awareness month.  Finally, if you are a dedicated cybersecurity professional, you may (that’s right, may) know that October is also national cybersecurity awareness month.

Now there’s nothing wrong with cybersecurity awareness month and those participating deserve credit for their efforts.  The National Cyber Security Alliance website, staysafeonline.org, is especially useful.  The problem I see (and I’ve written about for years) is that national cybersecurity awareness month is really a token gesture with most of the effort coming from the public sector and those few companies (mostly in Washington) that profit from working with the public sector.  Want proof?  Surf to the websites of all of the top cybersecurity vendors you can think of:  Check Point, FireEye, Fortinet, Intel Security (McAfee), Kaspersky Lab, Palo Alto Networks, Symantec, Trend Micro, etc.  You aren’t likely to see anything substantial (if at all) about national cybersecurity awareness month anywhere. 

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