Cyber Security Month is a Reminder of the Role Employees Play in Information Security

By Michele Robinson-Pontbriand | Director Corporate Social Responsibility

Cyber threats around the world continue to evolve with greater complexity, severity, and impact to businesses. In the past few months, there has been a notable increase in ransomware attacks and threats, particularly those focused on COVID-19 related fraud and scams.

As more employees work from home, the role of corporate IT departments — and particularly information security personnel — has become even more critical. But these organizations can only do so much to protect a company’s digital assets. Every employee has a role to play in ensuring corporate information stays secure by remaining vigilant while performing simple, every-day tasks like clicking links in emails, downloading content from the internet, and interfacing online with entities outside the company’s firewall.

At Keysight, our Information Security and Compliance (ISC) team has always recognized the role individual employees play in the company’s security. When the pandemic moved many to work from home, the organization rapidly expanded VPN capacity and deployed multiple tools to help employees make appropriate decisions in their every-day work interactions in support of the company’s operational security.

In order to reinforce the importance of cyber-awareness, and in recognition of October’s Cyber Security Month in the United States, in 2017 Keysight’s information security team launched the annual Keysight Cyber Security Awareness Month program each September. This program provides a wide variety of informative and timely materials to supplement the team’s already regular and instructive communications efforts. In addition to highlighting specific cyber security issues, related news and online materials, the program has included a series of live and recorded webinars for employees worldwide that cover key cyber security hot topics such as:

• Ransomware and spear-phishing
• Highlights of important Keysight information security policies
• A day in the life of Keysight’s information security operations
• An introduction to Keysight’s very own team of 'hackers' that work hard to identify potential security gaps

In addition, employees have been challenged with two levels of contests — one for any employee and a second more challenging quiz, dubbed the Cyber Warrior Challenge, for employees with a special interest in cyber security. Both contests were set up to reward employees who successfully answer all of the questions.

Keysight information security policies play an important role in helping keep information secure, protecting the business so that Keysight can serve its customers without disruption. This advanced Cyber Security Month effort has been a great way to reinforce employee responsibility, and I personally found the materials incredibly helpful in my non-work life as well.

I encourage others to take heed of the Cyber Security Month call-to-action and review both corporate and your personal processes in this important area.