Cybersecurity Awareness Means Better Resilience for Businesses

Carlsbad businesses can become more cybersecurity aware, at no cost

By Lisa Easterly, CEO – San Diego Cyber Center of Excellence
& Bryan Chau, Life in Action Program Assistant – City of Carlsbad

Coming out of the pandemic, businesses – especially small businesses – are in vulnerable positions and cannot afford another major impact on their operations. As we have seen over this past year, many businesses have begun to pivot more of their operations online, from remote work and telecommuting to eCommerce and online marketing. With this shift in operations, it could leave many vulnerable to cyber threats such as hacks, malware, ransomware and many others.

Cyber threats are not a new problem, but we see in the news more frequently that many different types of businesses are becoming targets of these attacks. There are many stories of companies being targeted by hackers in order to steal information or shut down operations for monetary gain. There is the recent news of a US Fuel pipeline, the Colonial Pipeline, being shut down from operations for days due to ransomware from hackers and more locally the hacking of Scripps Health that has led to disruptions in access to patient information and shutdowns of their systems causing communication problems between doctors and patients.

With all these changes going on for small business operations as they begin to move online, the City of Carlsbad believes that now more than ever, business resiliency and cybersecurity-awareness are imperative for a successful community. That is why the City of Carlsbad is now partnering with the San Diego Cyber Center of Excellence (CCOE) to bring businesses a Cyber-Awareness Program.

The program intends to support 250 small local businesses in gaining better cybersecurity-awareness through three program aspects. The first being, an FBI Cyber Task Force executive briefing on the current landscape of cyber threats. A cyber risk snapshot will be provided for each participating company by RiskRecon, a Mastercard company. This will give each company an initial personalized grade and report of their current online presence that includes potential vulnerabilities they face, as well as an updated one at the end of the program. Lastly, each business will receive a free subscription to ESET’s premium cybersecurity-awareness training for up to 100 employees to provide helpful information on running business operations more safely online. The program launches May 18, 2021. Email [email protected] or visit here to register.

All these services are being offered to Carlsbad small businesses at no cost to them when they sign up to participate. For the City of Carlsbad, businesses becoming more cyber-aware means a more resilient business community, and more prosperous Carlsbad economy, which benefits us all.