October is best known for Halloween, but October also happens to be National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. It’s a time to focus on how cybersecurity is a shared responsibility, and we all must work together to protect and improve our nation’s cybersecurity.
What does cybersecurity have in common with Halloween? Plenty. Here are 5 ways that cybersecurity and Halloween are alike.
Both can be scary and downright frightful
Halloween is scary, and there’s always a new scare around the corner; like the Halloween movies – all eleven of them. Tales of murderous creatures, catastrophic plagues and lethal encounters abound. Cyberattacks can be just as frightening, and real-world calamities can also have an impact on cybersecurity. A perfect example of this is Ransomware, which locks your computer and demands a payment to unlock it and give access to your data. The best defense against ransomware is to keep your operating system current. If you’re a victim of ransomware, having a backup of all your data is akin to dodging the bullet. Pay the ransom? That may work – but no guarantees.
It’s trick or treat time
Trick-or-treating is the pinnacle of Halloween festivities. Kids dressed in costumes visit houses and ask “trick or treat” to receive candy. Interestingly, few opt for trick. For hackers, it’s all about the tricking - and it’s their treat they succeed. Phishing uses email trickery to fool you into clicking a link or downloading an attachment. It’s a cybersecurity concern for both consumers and businesses. Whaling, a form of phishing, targets specific, high-ranking company officials. Prevention? Train your employees on how to detect and prevent cyber threats. Study phishing examples and be quick to question and confirm legitimacy by another means like Google searching.
Sometimes, the threat to watch isn't the danger outside – it's the friend who unwittingly lets the killer in. Vigilant businesses should practice good third-party cybersecurity to keep the creepers at bay.
It’s a masquerade ball
Around Halloween, groups hold masquerade parties where guests dress up, and it’s anybody’s guess who is in the costume or behind the mask. Imagine a masquerade where everyone dressed in costume is a hacker except you – who’s not wearing a costume. Hackers thrive on remaining anonymous. For months, we didn’t know who was behind the WannaCry ransomware attack that held thousands of computers hostage worldwide in 2017. Now we learn that a programmer based in North Korea was behind it. Hackers mask their identity or assume the appearance of something one is not, the very definition of masquerade.
Whose house gets egged and TP’d?
Vandalism happens on Halloween night. Sometimes, certain neighborhoods are targeted – the homes with the best treats locked inside. Often, it’s that one house on the street without any outside lights on or purposely doesn’t give out any candy that gets egged and TP’d. The correlation here is one house on the street that looks deserted is more vulnerable to vandalism than the other well-lit houses with security signs. It’s the same with hackers. They probe network defenses looking for the one network easiest to pilfer and launch DNS or DDoS attacks. Lesson: don’t be the business with the most vulnerable network on the block. Go above and beyond basic regulatory minimums, especially if you operate in a targeted industry like healthcare. Take this advice from DARKReading: “Businesses need to maintain constant vigilance on the techniques used to target them and continually evolve their defenses to industry best practices.”
Black cats vs. black hats
People associate Halloween with black cats. It has something to do with being a favored pet of witches and involved with dark magic. In cybersecurity, the evil entity is black hats. As this Wired article noted, black hats are criminals who break into machines and steal data, such as passwords, email, intellectual property, credit card numbers or bank account credentials. To battle the black hats, your business can retain white hats—the good guys in computing, who use their hacking talents to inform you of network vulnerabilities.
That’s 5 ways which cybersecurity and Halloween are alike, and it seems most fitting to share during National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Cybersecurity is a personal and professional responsibility, by using different, strong passwords and two-factor authentication at home and work. Backup data hourly, daily or weekly, whatever makes sense for you or your organization. Count to 10, not to calm down but to think twice before clicking on a link or attachment.
