For those of you who read Smart Thinking regularly, you will realise that this “Wednesday Bit” has been published a day late – the reason was a Cyber Security Awareness talk I gave yesterday at the East Lincs Expo. I delayed publishing, rather than writing an article and leaving it to auto-post because I wanted you to have the opportunity to download a free gift.
Cyber Security Awareness
I do not do talks that are an advert for our services, or full of “project fear” and jargon – I like anyone who sits through my presentation to leave with at least one thing that is useful to them. My slot was thirty minutes with some question time tagged on the end so I did not have a lot of time to teach my audience something that, if implemented, would have an immediate impact on their cyber security. Then I had the idea of an elephant. (My apologies to elephants, David Attenborough, WWF, etc., etc..)
How do you eat an elephant?
I often find that smaller businesses and organisations do not engage with cyber security. There is a variety of reasons but one of the most common is that they are overwhelmed by the idea and size of the project. They hope that some anti-virus, a bit of back-up and the IT company they only engage with when there is a problem, will get them through.
Unfortunately, this is obviously not enough.
Focus on the process not the outcome
My approach today was to offer a strategy to get them to stop looking at the whole and where they need to get to and look only at the first step in the process. I felt this would help both larger and smaller organisations and even those that already have a cyber security plan, as they could use the information in the presentation to double check their plan.
AAA
That first step was to discuss and describe the fundamental cyber security concept of Authentication, Authorisation and Accountability and linking that to how it impacts and can support a cyber security project.
The Free Cyber Security Awareness Gift
You were not there – so you did not hear the details – but if you would like a free copy of the slides that show my process please follow the link and download a copy. All it will cost you is a valid email address.
Realistic Cyber Security Slides – Free Download
You can follow that up with a look at my Credentials Primer for some more details:
Next Week
Pretexting.
Clive Catton MSc (Cyber Security) – by-line and other articles
p.s.
Q: How do you eat an elephant?
A: One mouthful at a time.
