Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Are You Secure?

Every October, businesses talk a little more about cybersecurity.

Employees are reminded not to click suspicious links.

Training gets assigned.

Phishing simulations get sent.

There are conversations about passwords, multifactor authentication, and protecting sensitive information.

All of that has value.

But after more than 25 years working in IT and cybersecurity, there's a question I think business leaders should be asking:

Is any of it actually making your business more secure?

Because there's a difference between making employees aware of cybersecurity and changing the way an organization handles cybersecurity.

And Cybersecurity Awareness Month is a good time to figure out which one you're doing.

Completing the Training Isn't the Goal

I've seen businesses approach security awareness like a compliance exercise.

Assign the training.

Send the reminders.

Get everyone to complete it.

Check the box.

Done.

Except the employee who completed cybersecurity training on Monday can still click a phishing email on Thursday.

That doesn't necessarily mean the training failed.

It means cybersecurity awareness is more complicated than whether someone knows the definition of phishing.

Think about what employees are dealing with during an average workday.

Emails. Teams messages. Texts. Shared documents. Meeting invitations. Login requests. Voicemail notifications. Vendor requests. Customer questions.

They're moving quickly.

And cybercriminals understand that.

Increasingly, attackers aren't relying on messages that obviously look malicious. They're imitating the ordinary tools and communications employees already trust.

That's why I wouldn't measure a security-awareness program by how many people completed a course.

I'd ask:

What are employees doing differently because of it?

Awareness Should Change Behavior

A security-aware employee doesn't need to understand every cybersecurity threat.

They don't need to become an IT professional.

But they should develop certain instincts.

Why am I being asked to log in?

Did I initiate this request?

Is it normal for this person to ask me to send this information?

Why is this vendor suddenly asking us to change payment details?

Should I verify this request another way?

And perhaps most importantly:

Something feels off. Who should I ask?

That's what good cybersecurity awareness should create.

Not fear.

Not paranoia.

A moment of hesitation when something doesn't make sense.

Sometimes those few seconds are enough to stop an attack.

Your Employees Aren't Cybersecurity Experts

There's another side to this conversation that I think businesses sometimes overlook.

We frequently hear that employees are the "first line of defense."

There's some truth to that.

But we shouldn't interpret it to mean employees are responsible for catching every attack.

Cybercriminals spend enormous amounts of time figuring out how to make fraudulent requests look legitimate.

Some phishing emails are extremely convincing.

Attackers can impersonate executives, vendors, coworkers, and familiar services.

They can create realistic login experiences.

They can take advantage of legitimate authentication processes.

And increasingly, they can use AI to make these attacks faster, more personalized, and harder to distinguish from normal communication.

So yes, train your employees.

But don't build a cybersecurity strategy that only works if every employee makes the correct decision every time.

Eventually, someone won't.

Your security needs to be prepared for that too.

What Happens When Someone Clicks?

This may be a more useful question than asking whether employees know not to click.

Suppose someone does.

What happens next?

Does your email security catch the malicious message before it reaches other employees?

Does multifactor authentication make it harder for stolen credentials to be used?

Are suspicious sign-ins detected?

Does the employee have access to far more information than they actually need?

Can your IT team quickly revoke sessions and secure the account?

Are important systems backed up?

Would you know something happened?

Cybersecurity works best in layers.

Employee awareness is one of those layers.

It shouldn't be the only one.

Because a single mistake shouldn't automatically become a business crisis.

Make It Easy to Say, "I Think I Made a Mistake"

There's another measure of cybersecurity awareness that rarely appears on a training report.

How quickly would one of your employees tell you they clicked something they shouldn't have?

That matters.

If employees believe they'll be embarrassed, blamed, or disciplined for reporting a mistake, there's a risk they'll hesitate.

And hesitation gives an attacker time.

I'd much rather have an employee contact IT and say:

"I clicked something and I'm not sure if I should have."

Maybe it turns out to be nothing.

That's fine.

The alternative is discovering the problem hours or days later because the employee was afraid to say anything.

A healthy cybersecurity culture doesn't just teach people how to avoid mistakes.

It teaches them what to do when they think they've made one.

Leadership Has to Participate Too

Cybersecurity awareness can't be something leadership assigns to everyone else.

Executives are targets too.

In some cases, they're especially attractive targets because of the information, authority, and access associated with their accounts.

And employees watch what leadership does.

If executives routinely bypass security procedures because they're inconvenient, employees notice.

If leadership treats cybersecurity training as something to get through as quickly as possible, employees notice that too.

Culture tends to travel from the top down.

If you want employees to take cybersecurity seriously, leadership has to demonstrate that it matters.

What Happens on November 1?

This may be the most important question businesses can ask during Cybersecurity Awareness Month.

October ends.

Then what?

Do employees continue receiving security reminders?

Do you continue testing your defenses?

Are suspicious emails discussed?

Are new employees trained?

Are access permissions reviewed?

Are security incidents used as opportunities to improve?

Does leadership continue talking about cybersecurity?

Or does everyone move on until next October?

Cybersecurity awareness shouldn't be an annual event.

It should become part of how the business operates.

The goal isn't to have employees thinking about cybersecurity every second of the day.

That's unrealistic.

The goal is to build enough awareness, good habits, and technical safeguards that employees recognize when something doesn't feel right and know exactly what to do next.

Don't Make It Easy for Them

This year's Cybersecurity Awareness Month theme is "Don't Make It Easy for Them."

I like that message because cybersecurity doesn't always have to begin with something complicated.

Sometimes it's about making the attacker's job harder.

Use multifactor authentication.

Keep systems patched.

Limit unnecessary access.

Protect email.

Back up important information.

Train employees.

Give them an easy way to report something suspicious.

And make sure someone is paying attention when they do.

None of those things guarantees that your business will never experience a cyberattack.

That's not a realistic promise anyone should make.

But each one can remove an opportunity an attacker might otherwise have.

After more than 25 years in this industry, I've watched the threats change considerably.

The technology has changed.

The attacks have changed.

And now AI is changing the speed and scale at which some of those attacks can happen.

But one thing hasn't changed:

Attackers look for opportunities.

So, this Cybersecurity Awareness Month, don't only ask whether your employees completed their training.

Ask whether they know what to do when something doesn't look right.

Ask what happens when someone makes a mistake.

Ask whether your technology gives them another layer of protection.

And when October ends, ask one final question:

Are we simply more aware of cybersecurity, or are we actually more secure because of it?