Cybersecurity Awareness Month

2024 Office of the Governor's Proclamation on Cybersecurity Awareness Month

Check out DIR's Instagram, X and LinkedIn profiles for cyber tips and statistics throughout the month.

Maintaining a robust first line of defense begins with establishing a culture of cybersecurity awareness. By providing regular, engaging cybersecurity awareness training, organizations can significantly enhance overall security posture for Texas. This can be further enhanced by rewarding employees for good cyber hygiene.  Together, these efforts create a proactive and informed workforce, ready to tackle any cyber threat. 

Cybersecurity Awareness Month Activities 

Upcoming events, webinars and more coming soon.

Oct1 HHSC Navigating the Threat Landscape: Key Updates, AI Influence, and Essential Cyber Security Awareness

Oct 2 National Cybersecurity Alliance: Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2024

Oct 6 DIR Cyber Awareness webinar: Deepfakes in the Wild - How to Prepare Your Users! Presented by Hook Security

Oct 8 HHSC Social Engineering – Chronicles of Old and Portents of the Future

Oct 9 TxDOT Cybersecurity Month Threat Hunting Workshop

Oct 17 Texas Military Department CyberAware24

Oct 18 HHSC AI Demystified: Leveraging, and Securing AI in Our Digital World

Oct 22 DIR Cyber Awareness Lunch Presented by SAIC (Event Flyer linked)

Oct 23 DIR & Gartner security webinar: Getting employees to take cyber risk more seriously – the communications challenge

Oct 23 HHSC Circle of Scholars: An Awareness Panel

Oct 31 DIR OCISO education webinar presented by Silver Safe and Secure - Digital Safety Class 

If you have events, webinars or other CAM related events to share please send to [email protected]. We will promote your event here and on other DIR communication streams. 

Current Youth Competitions:

After 9 wonderful years of bringing gamified cyber education to young people across the globe, CyberStart America cyberstart.com and Cyber-Fast Track cyber-fasttrack.org is now closed.  

DIR would like to continue support and learning efforts in the field so we created a one pager to help you start your own cyber club. This came from the contributions of our high school intern, who is a cyber student and created a club at his school. Start a Cyber Club one pager 

DIR Cybersecurity Awareness Kit 

DIR wants to support your organizations to maintain cyber awareness activities through the year, beyond October. Check out the Cyber Awareness social media kit including seasonal cyber posts and sector specific (K-12, local and state government and high education) for your audiences, general cyber posts and a cross word puzzle to keep your employees engaged.

Texas A&M University Cybersecurity Games

Each year, the Texas A&M Division of Information Technology creates a campus-wide IT security game for National Cyber Security Awareness Month. Each game is designed to be fun and engaging, while educating students, faculty and staff about how to be safe online.

CSSIA Interactives

The interactives were developed under the leadership of Mike Qaissaunee (about) at the Brookdale Cyber Center with funding from an NSF Grant. If you have kids or students interested learning or developing their skills in cybersecurity and networking, give these a try! 

In addition, check out these Cyber Competition https://www.caeepnc.org/cybercompetitions/

MS-ISAC  Cybersecurity Awareness Materials 

MS-ISAC no longer prints toolkit materials, calendars or posters but you are welcome to print and share items below. https://www.cisecurity.org/ms-isac/ms-isac-toolkit/

Additional General Security Resources 

Find additional cybersecurity information and tools from the following resources. 

• Texas.gov Cyber Safety Corner
• US CERT CISA Tips for Home and Business
• US CERT CISA Tips for Home Network
• NSA Best Practices for Securing Your Home Network
• https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/awareness-training-education/publications
• TEA Best Practices for Video Learning
• Proofpoint Activity Book for Kids

Importance of Cyber Awareness 

• https://www.nist.gov/itl/smallbusinesscyber/guidance-topic/employee-awareness 
• https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/awareness-training-education/publications

Regular Cyber Updates 

• Join the TX-ISAO to get advisories and newsletters 
• https://cyware.com/cyber-security-news-articles 
• https://thehackernews.com/ 
• https://cybernews.com/news/