A week’s focus on security awareness is planned to conclude this year’s cyber security month. From October 26 to 30, the IT security people are to offer five days of workshops, webinars and other educational opportunities. Their aim; to improve IT security awareness and spread best practice within the business, ultimately acting as an enabler to make UK PLC a safer place to trade online.
Security Serious Week will be hosted byIT security practitioners and professionals as well as universities, associations and government bodies. All sponsors are offering their time and expertise free. The campaign has already attracted backers including: Unilever, BT, HP Security Voltage, Canon UK, The Economist, HSBC, Publicis Groupe, GlaxoSmithkline, Markit, Lloyds Bank, Willis as well as the Department of Culture, Media and Sports and many IT security vendors.
The campaign has the tagline “we take security seriously – do you?” and sees penetration testers, ethical hackers, lawyers, professors and others coming together. Topics confirmed so far include: “An ethical hackers viewpoint on how to protect your organisation”, “Cloud Security – and mitigating risk”, “Building a cyber-security strategy”, “How do hackers think – lessons from the Red Team”, “How do you create anonymity on the Web”, “Winning your privacy back”, “What could a breach cost you?”, “Next generation Security – what will it look like?”, “How to avoid a phishing attack?”, “Is the Internet of Things worth getting worked up over?” Over the week the organisers plan to deliver at least 50 free events – organised either as webinars or onsite seminars, networking events plus some organisations have pledged to offer free software, guides and handbooks. The schedule is at www.securityserious.com.
Yvonne Eskenzi, Director of Eskenzi PR who is heading the campaign said: “The frequency and severity of breaches has never been so high and things aren’t going to get any better unless we start to take the situation seriously. I believe, as a nation, we need to work together and get the experts who are security serious and savvy to teach those that aren’t, but want to learn, how they can be. I’ve brought together a number of Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) from many of the UK’s leading companies, plus many other security experts from the top IT security companies around the world, to pledge their time during Security Serious Week. Hopefully, by imparting their pearls of wisdom it will rub off on other people in the workplace to take security more seriously, become diligent when using corporate systems and devices, and consider the implications when handling sensitive information and customers’ personal details”.
Organisers of Security Serious Week are also offering free a short story book titled “Hackers Tales” about cyber-security scenarios based on fictitious stores of what can go wrong when security goes array. Its hints and tips provide the reader with best security awareness practices. The book, which has been sponsored by Tripwire and PhishMe can be downloaded from www.securityserious.com.
