Countdown to NCSAM 2016: Get Involved

It’s that time of year again! No, we’re not talking about the return of Pumpkin Spiced Lattes. October 1st marks the kick-off of this year’s National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM), and we hope you’ll join us in this important initiative. Whether you’re thinking about online safety in your personal life or on behalf of a business, NCSAM is the perfect time to prioritize your security and actually take meaningful steps towards better protecting yourself. As an official NCSAM Champion, we’re here to help you get involved throughout the month of October and make sure you’re getting the most out of LastPass, too.

What is NCSAM?

NCSAM is a time to learn how to stay safe and secure online. Recognized every October, NCSAM was created as a collaborative effort between government and industry to ensure all digital citizens have the resources needed to stay safer and more secure online. Coordinated and led by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), NCSAM has grown exponentially to reach consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses, corporations, educational institutions and youth across the nation and internationally. Most importantly, NCSAM is all about taking ownership of your online security and recognizing the role we all play in a safer digital space.

What’s happening

Throughout October, there will be a number of ways to get involved with NCSAM, online and off. In addition to all of the great resources produced by StaySafeOnline.org, we will also be sharing lots of helpful content tailored to LastPass customers, both personal and business. Each week has a unique theme focused on a different cybersecurity issue or trend, and we’ll be sharing tips on our blog and with our online communities that echo the weekly themes:

• Week 1: Oct. 3-7 STOP. THINK. CONNECT.™: The Basic Steps to Online Safety and Security
• Week 2: Oct. 10-14 From the Break Room to the Boardroom: Creating a Culture of Cybersecurity in the Workplace
• Week 3: Oct. 17-21 Recognizing and Combating Cybercrime
• Week 4: Oct. 24-28 Our Continuously Connected Lives: What’s Your “Apptitude”?
• Week 5: Oct. 31 Building Resilience in Critical Systems

See the full lineup of activities over at the official NCSAM website.

Get involved

There are many ways to get involved with NCSAM, especially with LastPass to help you make improvements. We recommend first setting a goal for the month. Here are some ideas:

• Sign up for LastPass to start organizing and safeguarding your passwords.
• Turn on two-factor authentication for LastPass and other websites that offer it.
• Make every single password in your vault a strong, generated one.
• Get a Security Challenge score of 90 or higher.
• Designate an Emergency Access contact in your vault.
• Solve the password problem at your office by getting started with LastPass Enterprise.

Once you set a goal, there are many ways to participate with us in NCSAM:

• Follow @LastPass in your social community of choice as we join in the #CyberAware conversation.
• Join the weekly #ChatSTC Twitter chats every Thursday at 3pm ET, where we’re officially partnering with @STOPTHNKCONNECT to discuss important cybersecurity topics.
• Send an email to friends and family informing them that October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month and encourage them to try LastPass. Use our referral option to earn Premium credit – and give your recipients Premium credit, too!
• Subscribe to the blog so you can share our articles & videos with friends, family, and colleagues.

For our Enterprise Admins, we’ve gone a step further to help you plan additional activities around LastPass by providing our popular NCSAM toolkit. It’s got all the materials you need to plan special LastPass-related activities throughout the month, so you can spread awareness of your deployment of LastPass Enterprise and boost adoption. Here are some additional ideas for NCSAM initiatives you can plan at your business:

• Review the NCSAM toolkit we’ve put together, with all the resources you need to plan an engaging, successful NCSAM.
• Watch our kickoff webinar with special guest Michael Kaiser, Executive Director of NCSA, to learn how NCSAM can help your business achieve your cybersecurity objectives.
• Put passwords to the test with the LastPass Security Challenge. Consider creating a competition among team members to see who can get the highest scores, and who makes the biggest improvement in their scores.
• Host a Lunch & Learn. Using one of our presentations or resources provided on StaySafeOnline.org, schedule a time to chat with employees about good cybersecurity and password practices.

We want to help you take your password security to the next level, and go beyond the basics with LastPass to really put your password manager to work for you. Be sure to follow along with the #CyberAware hashtag and we hope we’ll hear from you throughout the month. We’re looking forward to helping you have a fun - and safe - October!