While governors across the U.S. are issuing Cybersecurity Awareness Month proclamations, some states are also offering programming for their residents, businesses and public-facing organizations.
New York, Oklahoma and Texas are among them. Those states are all offering toolkits, activities and webinars for a range of constituents. The goal is to offer actionable tips and tricks that converge on identity protection, email security, device protection, scam spotting and now AI, which is making cyber crime attempts harder to spot.
In New York, the Office of Information Technology Services Cybersecurity Awareness Month page lists resources for a range of audiences, including businesses, educators and the public. The state is also encouraging early cybersecurity habits through a sponsored student poster contest with a Dec. 18 deadline for entries. Last year’s winners ranged from second graders to high school seniors.
The Oklahoma Information Sharing and Analysis Center, meanwhile, links to resources for various audiences and has also put together a cybersecurity checklist called 31 Days of Cybersecurity that suggests one item per day that anyone can undertake. The checklist reflects this year’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month message of taking small steps toward being cyber secure, steps such as updating software, enabling multifactor authentication, using a password manager and making passwords stronger.
Texas Cyber Command also has seven publicly available webinars and two in-person events on its calendar for the month. With the motto “Texas First. Cyber Ready,” the year-old agency is doing outreach for state and local government as well as for education entities. Weekly themes include Team Texas, Defending Your Identity, Emerging Technologies and Cyber Resilience. Each week features webinars open to the public, and the agency rounds out the month with a live event in Austin.
Cybersecurity Awareness Month began in 2004 as a joint initiative between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the nonprofit National Cybersecurity Alliance. Themes this year are “Securing the Next 250,” from the federal government, and “Don’t Make It Easy for Them,” from the National Cybersecurity Alliance. During its Oct. 1 webinar, the nonprofit urged people to take actions that would make it harder for criminals to steal data, personal information and other assets.
