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vulnerabilities are exposed, they express outrage and alarm, but cannot wrap their heads
around what really occurred or why, and—perhaps most importantly—how to respond, or
better, what might have prevented the event in the first place.

This should not be the case. A cohesive, comprehensive and sustained national awareness
campaign will help the public understand how to more effectively protect themselves,
thereby alleviating many immediate threats. The United States has had success creating a
number of national education and awareness campaigns that have provoked change in
people’s behaviors. Forest fire prevention and H1N1 protection awareness succeeded
because the public was briefed on the topics, including the threat, and a widespread
campaign was organized. A comprehensive campaign to improve the cyber health of
American citizens and businesses should be a top priority. Areas of public awareness must
include:

Never opening email links or attachments unless the sender is known and trusted

• Periodically changing passwords

• Installing and regularly updating proper anti-virus and anti-spyware software

• Regularly installing operating system software updates

• Enabling firewall security

As the U.S. GAO[1] has noted, threats from external sources are up 782 percent from 2006
to 2012. Declines from threats are not on the horizon. Therefore, the imperative lies on each
of us to help inform and protect the information systems critical to our everyday lives.

Basic issues, such as those noted above and more, produce roughly 80 percent of
exploitable vulnerabilities that contribute to cyber-events. More than ever, now is the time for
government and its industry partners to help the public better understand the nature of
cybersecurity and what steps they can take to improve and ensure their safety.

• Start by raising more awareness in K-12 school communities

• Provide tips and expertise to small businesses (through social media, pamphlets?)

• Use traditional and non-traditional communications channels to drive local decision
makers to update cybersecurity information and make resources available

Operationalizing the effort

These actions and activities have been long discussed and may seem simple enough, many
people even may consider them common sense. However, it is true that threats,

19 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – July 2014 Edition
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