Generational security: The meaning behind this year’s Cyber Security Awareness Month theme
This year’s Cyber Security Awareness Month theme is “Generation Cyber Safe: Because online security knows no age”, but what does that mean? The annual theme of CSAM doesn’t have to affect your events, but it’s a good way to find nuances from previous years and spark inspiration for innovative resources.
In today’s blog, we’ll review the definition of this year’s Cyber Security Awareness Month theme, why it’s important, and how you can find inspiration from it for your events.
What is the theme of CSAM 2024?
According to Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSE), this year’s theme is “Generation Cyber Safe: Because online security knows no age.” This message is meant to translate that for Canada to be cyber safe, we all must be cyber safe, no matter our age.
Often younger “tech savvy” generations deem themselves too knowledgeable to need security awareness training and are left without the needed security education. Meanwhile, despite being the generation most likely to be targeted by scams, older generations can be considered too hard to teach or not online enough to be considered valuable. This missing education also leaves a gap in Canada’s cybersecurity.
This campaign is meant to highlight each generation’s cybersecurity strengths and how they can share and utilize them throughout the year. Additionally, each generation’s weaknesses could be targeted in CSAM campaigns or events.
Why does it matter to us?
You may have a few generations across your organization, but far less than Canada as a whole. So, why does “generational security” matter to businesses?
Cyber safety starts in the home. With more employees working at home now more than ever, the actions you and your family take at home are more likely to impact your cyber safety at work. Children may have access to devices where organization accounts can be accessed. A spouse may share passwords with you and not practice proper password safety. Your personal information could be shared online by a parent or grandparent and later used for social engineering. The opportunity for accidental cyber security situations are endless.
Additionally, your customer base may fall across a multitude of generations. There are conversations around whether or not businesses should be responsible for the cybersecurity training of their clients, but if your clients are more cyber security safe, your business is more cyber security safe. By sharing the knowledge across generations, you can increase your organization’s safety through user cyber security hygiene.
How to incorporate generational security into CSAM
Offer a “bring your kid/parent to work” workshop
Your security efforts don’t have to end with your employees. Extend your education to their family members by welcoming them into a workshop that is geared towards their strengths or weaknesses.
The workshops could be themed “Social Media safety” and “Spotting fake accounts” for younger generations or “Spot the social engineering call” and “Say no to scams” for older generations.
How it’ll help: Showing your extended support to your team’s family members shows the importance of generational cybersecurity. Employees will learn how their family members can affect their security and family members will learn how to be cyber safe.
It also shows your security team’s willingness to support and strengthens your relationship with your team members, making it easier for them to ask for your support in times of need.
How to do it: Identify the family situations of your team members. Do most have children? Teens? Elderly parents? Roommates? Use this data to create a workshop that would be most helpful to their family members. Make it fun by allowing your team members and their families to work together to answer questions and solve cases. End the session with a family-style lunch. *
*Take into consideration the timing of the workshop as most children will be in school and a recorded workshop may be best.
Offer a generation vs. generation face-off
Nothing brings out the strengths and weaknesses of each generation like a bit of friendly competition! Use games to pit generations against each other and pick games that will lean into the strengths of each generation.
How it’ll help: These friendly competitions will show each generation their strengths and weaknesses. By identifying each, they’ll know where they can be helpful and where they will need to ask for help. Additionally, generations can share the insights behind their strengths so their knowledge can be passed to new generations.
How to do it: Break your employees into teams based on their generations. Host an afternoon of case cracks (or 1 case crack per week for all of CSAM), with the themes of each case crack varying and supporting the strengths of each generation. At the end of each case crack or competition, announce the winner and have them explain how they achieved their winning spot. If your organization is extremely competitive, you can keep track of points and have an Ultimate Winner generation.
Host a generation panel
If you already have some plans for your Cyber Security Awareness Month, you can still support the generational safety theme! When inviting experts to lead panels, workshops, or guests on podcasts, try having a generation-diverse cast.
Invite experts that are Gen Z, Millennials, Generation X, and Baby Boomers. Bonus if you can find guests in Gen Alpha or the Silent Generation!
Why it’s important: By having experts who are diverse in age, you are giving your team the opportunity to learn from generational perspectives. They can gain insights from an older generation that has seen the history of technology and from the younger generation that has been on a computer since they were a kid. This diversified perspective allows your team to have the richest insights into cybersecurity safety possible.
How to do it: Look through your connections on LinkedIn, or even put a post on your feed asking for generational cybersecurity experts, and create a list of possible guests for each generation. Send out invitations for a panel with a representative from each generation, the theme can be anything you choose: Phishing, social engineering, or passwords.
The Cyber Security Awareness Month annual theme doesn’t have to change your plans if they are already set in stone. But it can be a great way to find inspiration and discover new topics for your annual CSAM events. This year, try incorporating generational security into your conversations. You can do this by inviting families to attend your workshops, having a generation-on-generation face-off, and hosting age-diverse experts for your events. Whether you embrace this theme or not, we hope you have a successful and safe Cyber Security Awareness Month!