October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month, a great opportunity to strengthen your human firewall in the war against this ransomware epidemic. We love that term, "Human Firewall" - that is precisely what we are. Some of us are weak firewalls, and some are extremely strong but the only way to strengthen the human firewall is through training or simple awareness. We strongly recommend having someone in your organization, or if you are an IT Company customer, having someone from our organization, come in periodically and do security awareness training with your team. You might also consider subscribing to one of the services, such as the one from www.knowbe4.com.

Here are a few additional resources to spend some time reviewing. Knowledge is power, and in this case knowledge is risk mitigation and security as well:

National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) is designed to engage and educate public and private sector partners through events and initiatives to raise awareness about cybersecurity, provide them with tools and resources needed to stay safe online, and increase the resiliency of the Nation in the event of a cyber incident: https://www.dhs.gov/national-cyber-security-awareness-month

The following is an article that explains how ransomware causes downtime for sometimes a whole organization and how to boost cyber security awareness. We suggest you read this, and then review it with your leadership team and HR while you are at it. This was written by a large insurance/reinsurance company: http://xlcatlin.com/fast-fast-forward/articles/ransomwares-greatest-adversary_employee-cyber-awareness

For more information you can email your vCIO at vCIO@theitco.net