Silicon Prairie Cyber Services' Blog

Cybersecurity Awareness Month begins tomorrow! Are you ready?  This year’s theme is  “Do Your Part. #BeCyberSmart.”. Here’s a rundown of this year’s  weekly themes  that will help you learn how to protect yourself and your business from cyberattacks through actionable steps. Review the schedule below. Oct 4 - 10: Be Cyber Smart Oct 11 - 17: Fight the Phish Oct 18 - 24: Explore. Experience. Share. (Cybersecurity Careers) Oct 25 - 31: Cybersecurity First You can also catch me speaking live at the  Nebraska Cybersecurity Conference  on October 19. The conference is virtual, and there’s still time to register. So no matter where you’re sitting, you’ll have a great seat. In honor of Cybersecurity Awareness month, I’m switching up my email and blog schedule. During October, I’m going to kick off your week by sending you an email every Monday morning all about the week’s cybersecurity awareness theme. Not on my email list? Join now . Also, you'll want to follow me...

Let’s talk about phishing emails and the techniques used by cyber criminals to get you to click. Today, I’m going to focus on the subject line.   The subject line is super important, and that’s why the bad guys are using it against you. Why is the subject line so important? The subject line is the first and only hint at what the email is about. If you can’t reel ‘em in with the subject line they might never open your email. In fact, the subject line is so important that marketers test different subject lines against each other to see which one will get the most opens.   Cyber criminals try to invoke a sense of urgency and emotions to get you to click. That’s why words like ‘URGENT’ and ‘IMPORTANT’ have appeared in their subject lines for years. But now, there’s a new word in the subject line, and that new word is ‘NEW.’   THE NEW WORD IS NEW.   WHY IS ‘NEW’ SUCH A POWERFUL WORD IN PHISHING EMAILS? Legit emails and alerts contain the word ‘new’ The...

  Here’s a tip to help your business stop thinking of cybersecurity as the Department of No.   Help make their life easier!   HOW CAN YOU MAKE EVERYONE’S LIFE EASIER IN THE OFFICE? Give them a password keeper AND teach them how to use it.   HOW PASSWORD KEEPERS MAKE LIFE EASIER No more trying to memorize all the passwords you have No more forgotten passwords No more time wasted resetting passwords No more wasting time trying to think of unique passwords Put an end to tracking your passwords in Excel, post-it notes, and notebooks.   WHY CYBERSECURITY PROS RECOMMEND PASSWORDKEEPERS Passwords stored securely Unique passwords for every account Stronger passwords Secure sharing of passwords Reduce the risk of the business being locked out of an essential app   Help your employees save time and end their frustration by trying to memorize hundreds of passwords. Get them started with a password keeper t...

Suddenly summer is over and pumpkin spice everything is out in full force, and that can only mean one thing…   Cybersecurity Awareness Month is coming.   That’s right, October 1 marks the start of Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2021!! Who else is excited?! This year’s theme is Do Your Part. #BeCyberSmart.  This year’s theme brings four new weekly themes, and provides you with some great opportunities to build relationships in your business.   As you’re churning out lots of awesome content and tips for Cybersecurity Awareness Month, I want to share some tips to keep in mind when your creative juices are flowing.   5 TIPS FOR WRITING CYBERSECURITY AWARENESS INFO Speak the language of business Keep it short and sweet Make your content mobile friendly Avoid technical jargon Don’t get lost in the weeds   Finally, if you need a guest speaker for Cybersecurity Awareness Month or need help planning I still have a few openings availab...

  When your cybersecurity department always says no… eventually they’ll stop asking for permission. WHO IS  THEY ? ‘They’ are your fellow employees, project managers, business leaders, and executives within your company. WHAT DO I MEAN BY PERMISSION? People are smart. Once they discover the answer is always ‘NO’ they’ll simply stop asking. The Cybersecurity department will be excluded from project teams and meetings. WHAT’S THE WORSE THAT CAN HAPPEN? Cybersecurity won’t be built into solutions from the start. When cybersecurity gets bolted on later, it’s more expensive, more complicated, and less effective. Data becomes accessible to the wrong people. You don’t know normal anymore. When you don’t know the approved solutions, it’s 100x more difficult to detect abnormal behavior that’s malicious. You’ll be spending extra hours responding to incidents. HOW CAN YOU LET THE BUSINESS KNOW YOU'RE READY TO LISTEN? Your cybersecurity awareness program is a great tool that can help you ...