Paying it forward with Cyber Security

I was at a farewell recently and a conversation started when I was asked where I work.
When I said at a Cyber Security company, I got a few confused looks. When I started explaining more around how important it is and how serious the damage can be, interests were peaked.

As I have mentioned in previous blogs and what comes up very often is password management. I asked them whether they have a different password for their platforms?

The first response, to my horror but not my surprise, was that one of the individuals has the same password for their Facebook and online banking. Now I know why they looked so worried when I was saying that if one platform is breached with that password, all the others will be breached too.

Afterwards, they came up to me and said that they are going home to change all their passwords because I have made them aware.

This is how it should be, you can’t expect everyone to know or be practicing cyber security best practices. What you can do, once you become aware, is share that knowledge.

By starting conversations around the importance of password management, locking your computer screen, updating your machine regularly and having security software installed, someone who is doing all the wrong things and is at a major risk of being breached could have a chance to protect themselves and secure their environment.

It will start at home and then they will also be more secure at their workplace, which will have a far-reaching effect.

No knowledge shared is wasted, whether the person uses it or not is not the point because chances are if a conversation starts up, they will want to share what they know and if they share it to someone who then puts the knowledge into action, the cycle will continue.

The more you know, the safer you will be, the more you share that knowledge the safer everyone will be.

Start the conversation, get protected and keep learning.

Olivia-Hannah Coetzee