Community outreach is fast becoming a way to help raise cybersecurity awareness for the lay person, with many (ISC)2 chapters around the world working to educate their friends, parents, teachers and community members about cyber risks and online safety.
Toward that end, security leaders were recognized at Security Congress during the Information Security Leadership Awards luncheon. For his dedication to fostering a safe and secure online environment through his “Cyber Security for Dummies” project, Joseph Carson, CISSP, chief security strategist at Thycotic, received the Community Awareness award.
In recognition of her security education growth initiative, Rinki Sethi, CISSP, vice president of information security, Palo Alto Networks, was awarded the Senior Information Security Professional award.
Satish Jayaprakash, CISSP, global head of application security at Merck, was honored with the Do It for the Children award by the Center for Cyber Safety and Education.
In addition to the awards ceremony, the center hosted a panel discussion, How to Be a Community Rockstar, offering ideas from different (ISC)2 members and chapters on how to engage the community to raise awareness about staying safe online.
One common suggestion was that chapters can offer local scholarships to high school students who are interested in pursuing careers in cybersecurity. “We put together a program where we matched funds from our members, up to a certain number, then went out to schools to get people to apply. To generate interest, we offered naming rights to the scholarship. We posted our scholarships (for anyone pursuing a career in information security) and got some applications,” said Tony Howlett, CTO at Codero.
The Austin (ISC)2 chapter also visits with senior citizens to educate them on fraud and instituted a "bring your kids to chapter" day, as a way for kids to see what their parents do and to introduce other members to the resources that are available.
“It’s us and you,” said Patrick Craven, director of the Center for Cyber Safety and Education. “We are trying to create that awareness. It starts small, which sometimes means it’s not a local school but a local classroom. Talking to a teacher and getting a teacher interested. That’s part of creating the grassroots movement inside the schools.”