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Cybersecurity Awareness Month (October 2023): Since 2004, this nation has recognized October as Cybersecurity Awareness Month as a broad effort to help all Americans become safer and more secure online. Online risks have evolved and proliferated over the years, and Cybersecurity Awareness Month has grown dramatically in response, expanding the number of activities, presentations, and events. It has also spread beyond the borders of the United States to become an international phenomenon ... (Read more)
Whole of State Cybersecurity (September 2023): In a Whole-of-State strategy, the state government collaborates with smaller local governmental organizations to ensure everyone is protected from threats. As part of this collaboration, state governments share training, threat intelligence, tooling, and other resources with municipalities and other local organizations to strengthen cyber defenses ... (Read more)
The Journey to Risk-Informed Compliance (August 2023): Many state agency leaders subject to OCIO 141.10 compliance requirements wonder how to apply risk assessment outcomes to their security practices. Compliance and risk management are essential tools for reducing the impact of threats. Organizations can achieve mission objectives and security by integrating these tools into a holistic framework ... (Read More)

Spotlight: Here's your team to identify and manage risks: The Policy and Program Management Team at WaTech's Office of Cybersecurity (OCS) needs a better name. You would have to know the people on the three-member team to understand the importance of the work they do - which is to find and fix cybersecurity risks statewide before criminals can take advantage of them ... (Read More)
Spotlight: There are no shortcuts to success: When Lyron Cobbins was growing up in Kansas, an uncle would advise him "there are no shortcuts to success." It's advice that stuck with him over the years and seems like a good metaphor for the work he does today as an information security architect with the security engineering team at WaTech's Office of Cybersecurity ... (Read More)

One Big Leap to Protect Your Information: There are many ways to protect important personal information including using strong passwords, freezing your credit, and being careful what you post on social media. There is one safeguard, however, that has become indispensable in today's world - multifactor authentication (MFA), also sometimes referred to as two-factor authentication ... (Read More)
Six steps you can take to protect yourself from BEC scams: Business email compromise (BEC) is a form of email phishing that uses the trust of people and companies we do business with to steal money. In a BEC scam, criminals send an email message that appears to come from someone you know who is making a seemingly legitimate request, such as ... (Read More)