Canada launches cybersecurity awareness campaign
The Canadian government has launched a consumer IT security awareness campaign in a bid to help Canadians protect themselves.The campaign, promoting October as Cybersecurity Awareness Month, features an ad campaign and an associated website. The website is designed to provide Canadians with a single portal for security information.
Get Cyber Safe is part of the cybersecurity strategy launched by the Canadian government, but has taken a while to set up – the strategy was unveiled a year ago.
The website covers basic consumer awareness techniques, such as regularly updating passwords and anti-virus software, using a secure wireless network, and learning how to recognize online scams.
While the Canadian government tackles consumers with basic tips, however, statistics suggest that Canada's IT professionals may be in need of their own awareness campaign when it comes to managing consumer technology. A survey conducted by Websense revealed that IT pros consider themselves ill-equipped for dealing with social media at work.
70 percent of Canadian respondents to the survey said that employees' use of social media in the workplace represents a serious security threat to the organization. However, only 31 percent of them said that they had the necessary security controls in place to mitigate the threat.
Only 39 percent of Canadian companies surveyed said that they had an acceptable-use policy for social media in the workplace.