How Will You Observe National Cybersecurity Awareness Month?

October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Now is the time to plan how your organization or department will step up its data security efforts. Consider:

• Strengthening employees’ skills to keep data and systems secure
• Improving technical strategies, such as implementing multifactor authentication
• Conducting a security audit or penetration test to learn about unknown vulnerabilities in your systems and procedures
• Establish an organizationwide records cleanup day to delete records no longer needed or required and move necessary records with sensitive data to secure storage locations (e.g., move out of email to secure server)

Resources Help You Observe Awareness Month

The National Cybersecurity Alliance is the sponsor of the annual observance and offers employers ideas and materials to build their security efforts. Check out its website at StaySafeOnline.org.

Members are also encouraged to use data security resources from MCIT, including:

• Digital images to remind staff how they can be a human firewall, protecting the organization just like a technical firewall
• Quick Takes on Data Security mini training scripts to review data security steps with team members
• Informational articles on a number of security issues

Fully Revised Data Security Guide

MCIT is excited to announce the release of a fully revised second edition of the best practices guide “Essentials of Data Security for Public Entities.”

• Each chapter has been updated for current security concerns and best practices.
• More robust guidance is included around IT vendor contracts, incident response, data management, remote work and user authentication.

“Essentials of Data Security for Public Entities” recognizes that keeping a local government’s data secure goes beyond technical solutions such as email filters, firewalls and passwords. The publication addresses crucial nontechnical strategies that if left unaddressed can leave an organization just as vulnerable to breach as if the entity had no technical solutions at all.

This guide is intended to be used across an organization’s leadership to guide decision making and provide strategies for securing data throughout the entity’s operations.