October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month

October 2010 marks the seventh annual National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. This year's theme —Our Shared Responsibility—reflects two facts about cybersecurity:

1.  The cybersecurity threat has become one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face. America’s competitiveness and economic prosperity in the 21st century will depend on effective cybersecurity. Every business, not-for-profit, school, government organization and individual is at risk.

2. Every Internet user has a role to play in securing cyberspace and ensuring the safety of ourselves, our families, and our communities online.

Cybersecurity Awareness Month is sponsored by the National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCSA)—a nonprofit dedicated to fostering a culture of cybersecurity—along with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a cybersecurity prevention and protection collaboration for state and local governments.

As cybersecurity management consultants, Citadel Information Group is proud to join with the Los Angeles Chapter of the Information Systems Security Association, ISACA-LA, InfraGARD-Los Angeles, the LA Chapter of the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), and other Los Angeles information security organizations in working together to help keep our community safe from cybercrime.

New CyberSecurity Study says "Most senior execs unaware of impact from cyberattacks." ISSA-LA Committed to Doing Something About It.

According to an article in USA Today, a new Ponemon Institute poll of 591 technology managers shows that 83% indicated their organization has been a recent target of advanced threats while 81% felt that senior execs lacked awareness of the seriousness of advanced threats. Our experience confirms the validity of these statistics. The cybercrime problem is only going to get worse as more and more small and medium size businesses fall victim to online bank fraud.

The biggest challenge we see is helping the men and women who have to dedicate resources (people or money) understand (1) why they need to improve the security of their information systems, (2) the basic steps involved in improving systems security, and (3) the ancillary competitive benefits they can get from improved information systems security management.

It's to meet this challenge that we in the Los Angeles Chapter of the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA-LA) have embarked on an aggressive Community Outreach Program. Our objective is nothing less than to raise information security awareness throughout the Los Angeles community. This is the most important thing we can do to help our community protect itself from the scourge of cybercrime. Having successfully concluded our 2nd Annual Information Security Summit we know the time is right to bring the community together around this problem and we are dedicated to doing so.