Welcome to the User Security Training Awareness in 2020 Course from HailBytes.

My name’s David McHale. 

I’m a professional security consultant that’s helped people from dozens of organizations learn how to better protect themselves from the growing threat of cybercrime.

Some of the organizations that have trusted me to help them in recent years include the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Department of the Interior. 

It is becoming increasingly important for organizations to develop a culture that prioritizes cyber security. 

The training and security implementation are no longer soIely IT or security team functions.

They are now functions for everyone.

It’s important for each and every one of us to learn how to better protect ourselves, our families, and our employers.

Why group it all together like that?

It's because professional and personal lives are being melded together more often than not.

Not to mention your behaviors are very similar in what you do, in that which you do at home is what you'll most likely do at work.

You’re constantly hearing warnings about new threats, new breaches, and new attacks. It can be overwhelming to keep up with.

When you or your business does fall victim to an attack, people want to point fingers.

That is never the right away to approach security.

I want you to know that as we go through this course together I’ll speak to you from a place of compassion and not of condescension.

I don't want to beat you over the head or speak down to you.

My number one goal is to help you understand how to protect yourself. 

And we'll do that by going over what threats are important to know about, why they're important to understand, and what they look like in real life.

So now you might be wondering, "why is this a big deal?" 

91% of cyber attacks start with someone just like you or me clicking on something we think is trustworthy, and being taken advantage of to get access to our company’s network. 

The average cost of an attack like that succeeding is $5 million dollars according to the NCSA.

This means there is a huge need to protect devices.

Both in your home and in your workplace.

Your nerdy friend or your IT department can't fully protect you anymore.

It's extremely important to understand:

All of us have an important role to play in security, no matter what level you're at.

And I get it, there's hacks and intrusions and technical stuff that you can't help detect and stop.

I'm not asking you to learn complicated hacking skills that require the kind of experience that’s taken me years to build up.

In all honesty an attacker is 16.6x more likely to breach your company by taking advantage of your trust by way of a phishing email than with any fancy attack.

This is effective because you’re busy juggling a hundred different things at your job. 

You want to work quickly, and keep your organization moving forward, so it’s easy to fall prey to these kinds of attacks if you don’t know exactly what to look for.

By investing this time in developing your security awareness, you’re potentially saving your company millions of dollars in damage from cyber crime. 

I saw a story recently about a cosmetics company that suffered a ransomware attack that came through a phishing email and the hackers wound up accidentally deleting the files they’d held ransom. 

The entire company of 50 people was wiped out overnight because they weren’t keeping backups and someone happened to open a file from a phishing email.

As you go through this course, please don't hesitate to reach out and ask me any questions you have.

This course is intended to be a living reference for you to come back and review every few months. 

And remember...

Security awareness is just as important for Mac users too. 

Don't buy into the myth that you're safe because you don't use Windows.

Usernames and passwords from your banking website or retirement account or insurance company will work on any computer regardless of the operating system. 

Plus, there are plenty of viruses made specifically for Mac.

I’ll see you in the next episode.