{"id":54642,"date":"2016-10-04T19:26:07","date_gmt":"2016-10-04T19:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/?p=54642"},"modified":"2016-10-19T19:57:11","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T19:57:11","slug":"national-cyber-security-awareness-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/national-cyber-security-awareness-month\/","title":{"rendered":"October Is National Cyber Security Awareness Month"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Today&#8217;s cyber security threats are growing, is it because of lack of awareness?<\/h3>\n<p>October 1st, marks the beginning of National Cyber Security Awareness Month.\u00a0 Cyber security threats have continued to grow over the last few years.\u00a0 These threats include not only the security breaches that left millions of personal data files exposed, but also the ransomware epidemic.\u00a0 Unfortunately, these threats are not going anywhere.\u00a0 Cyber criminals know how to exploit data for financial gain, and until we make it impossible, the behavior will continue.<\/p>\n<p>How do we do this?\u00a0 There are several ideas on how to enhance cyber security, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/pro\/whitelist\">application whitelisting<\/a>, but first I want to go back to\u00a0the basics.\u00a0 Awareness.\u00a0 That is what October is all about, cyber security awareness.\u00a0 If people do not know it is an issue, then how can they possibly understand the dangers and take proactive measures?<\/p>\n<p>We recently conducted a survey asking approximately 440 PC users if they knew what ransomware was.\u00a0 Almost 95% of users claimed to be familiar with the concept.\u00a0 Of those participants, 20% claimed to have been victimized by ransomware.\u00a0 Now, what is interesting is, 55% of those impacted by ransomware had no idea the end result.\u00a0 They didn&#8217;t know if their files were encrypted, deleted, or both.\u00a0 I mention this because\u00a0typically, if hit with ransomware you know\u00a0what happened to your files.\u00a0 These results\u00a0beg the question, how many people are truly familiar with what ransomware is and its impact on\u00a0a PC?<\/p>\n<p>The concern here is the lack of awareness computer users have about today&#8217;s cyber security threats.\u00a0 How can we spread the word about cyber security to those who may be less interested or not as &#8220;tech savvy&#8221;?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s cyber security threats are growing, is it because of lack of awareness? October 1st, marks the beginning of National Cyber Security Awareness Month.\u00a0 Cyber security threats have continued to grow over the last few years.\u00a0 These threats include not only the security breaches that left millions of personal data files exposed, but also the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":53503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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