It's Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2023

How do we make it better?

This is probably going to be an unpopular opinion amongst my cybersecurity brethren but I wonder if we have lost the point of Cybersecurity Awareness Month (CSAM.) CSAM was started in 2004 by the Department of Homeland Security and the National Cyber Security Alliance to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity. As we head towards the 20th anniversary of this “event”, and one I have participated in willingly myself through social media, I wonder now if the juice is worth the squeeze.

I’m afraid the effort is now falling on non-listening ears. Sure, cybersecurity experts, cybersecurity vendors, and the occasional cyber media person looking for an interesting story may pay attention and interact on social media with other like-minded folks, but the people who NEED the awareness part of the month, likely are paying marginal attention at best. I’d add to that that we are downplaying the need for cybersecurity awareness by indicating we should only pay attention 1/12 of the year.

So I’ve noted my “concern”, but do I have a solution? I hope so. Here are some suggestions:

1. Build content that can have a longer shelf life that can be utilized and expanded on throughout the year.

2. Stop using it to sell your “stuff”. If you create content that provides free value for people who need it learn from it, they will return to you for more and maybe ultimately buy your “stuff” without you really needing to sell it.

3. Create knowledge building. This largely means creating, or participating in, a collective endeavor to generate new ideas, insights, or understandings, in this case around cybersecurity. This doesn’t necessarily mean repackaging the same information, but coming up with areas we may be missing or that is rarely discussed.

I had originally thought about doing these long satirical posts on Linkedin about all the cybersecurity topics we always talk about. But I scrapping that and hope to focus on these three points. All are welcome to join the effort.

Thought/comments/shares are welcome. Come along for the ride!