How AWS, Cisco, Netflix & SAP Are Approaching Cybersecurity Awareness Month

For those of us in the industry, cybersecurity is a priority 365 days a year. But for a brief window in October during Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the spotlight is on us. Given its importance in daily life, cybersecurity awareness has gained momentum in recent years — but there is still much to do.

Cybersecurity Awareness Month is co-led by the National Cybersecurity Alliance and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA). This year's theme, "See Yourself in Cyber," focuses on helping all individuals and organizations make smart decisions whether on the job, at home, or at school, now and in the future. This emphasizes the impact a single organization can have by instilling strong cybersecurity training and practices internally. 

For this reason, we asked Cisco, Netflix, and SAP to join us in sharing how they're observing Cybersecurity Awareness Month within their organizations, in the hope that it will inspire others to do the same.

Coming off our first cybersecurity-focused PSA, we are doubling down by investing further with this year's "See Yourself in Cyber" theme. It speaks to our continuous efforts at AWS to humanize security and build a security-first culture.

Throughout October, we're holding our annual One Amazon Security Conference for all Amazon employees. This year's monthlong conference features 70 sessions led by experts across six tracks, including data protection and governance, risk and compliance, identity and access management, networking and infrastructure, privacy, and threat detection and incident response. We also have sessions on building an inclusive security culture and why building products securely requires a security mindset before a single line of code is written.

Security is our No. 1 priority, and our culture of ownership means everyone at Amazon is responsible for security, no matter the job or role. Humanizing security through education should be a key priority for everyone. That's why we offer free cybersecurity awareness training to any individual or organization that wants to take advantage of it, so they can "see themselves in cyber" this month and beyond.

Brad Arkin, Senior Vice President, Chief Security and Trust Officer, Cisco

Cybersecurity Awareness Month is always an exciting time for our team. We'll have a number of resources for those seeking a new career in cybersecurity, all aligned with our commitment to power an inclusive future for all. For our customers and partners, we will have additional reports and resources covering topics like the benefits of a sharp focus on cybersecurity during mergers and acquisitions. Finally, for consumers and end users, we'll share the results of our Consumer Privacy Survey and best practices for keeping themselves, their businesses, and families safe. This will be supported by blog posts, e-books, reports, landing pages, and podcasts. Our Creative team has developed a set of graphic assets to raise awareness of cybersecurity and promote the theme of "See Yourself in Cyber."

To help cybersecurity professionals upgrade their skills, our learning and certification teams will be doing giveaways, distributing exam quizzes, and announcing new training courses. Internally, we will roll out new trainings and resources to keep our employees updated on the newest threats and informed about how to help mitigate them.

I've been excited to see how the entire global Cisco organization is taking part. Our team in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa is taking up the theme of #ThinkB4UClick, with a focus on ransomware and phishing. In the Asia-Pacific region, Japan, and China, we will promote cybersecurity awareness at various internal and external events. I will be traveling to Singapore to deliver a presentation at the GovWare 2022 conference and joining a CISO roundtable discussion for our customers in the region earlier in the month.

Srinath Kuruvardi, Head of Cloud Security, Netflix

This year for Cybersecurity Awareness Month, we are hosting talks from FBI special agents on a variety of topics to bring awareness around threat trends. We also plan to broadly share security messaging and guidance to all employees in fun, interesting ways. For example, we are launching an intranet website for the Security, Privacy, Assurance and Corporate Engineering (SPACE) organization (formerly InfoSec). The initiative incentivizes visits to the SPACE intranet site to understand our functions, teams, and where to go to get support and engage. It's a gamification scavenger hunt for answers to support questions.

Elena Kvochko, Chief Trust Officer, SAP

SAP is strengthening our security culture and constantly adapting it to the new challenges that come with digital transformation, which is why, for the sixth year in a row, SAP is participating in Cybersecurity Awareness Month, to remind employees about the importance of being vigilant against cyber threats.

With programs that run from September (China) through the end of October, SAP builds awareness about security with our 100,000-person global workforce. SAP kicks off the month with our chief security officer, joined by a host of experts, in a virtual event attended by thousands of employees from around the globe; the educational effort continues with special events all month long. Key security topics are covered, including vishing, phishing, password protection, how to remain safe using social media, and the importance of spotting deepfake technology. Learning about security is fun at SAP because we use gamification to engage employees via various fun games and prizes.

Toward the end of October, SAP will broaden our reach into the early talent community by co-hosting an Inter-University Cybersecurity "range" with SANS Institute, an organization that is dedicated to cybersecurity training and certifications and which has a wealth of resources available. SAP and SANS will host a capture-the-flag contest and a computer security competition for 200 university students and special guests anticipated to participate.

SAP's Chief Trust Office is proactively working to engage students from Atlanta University Center, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, Drexel, Penn State Brandywine, Penn State Main Campus, Hampton, Norfolk State, and Yale University.

About the Contributors

As senior VP, chief security, and trust officer, Brad Arkin leads Cisco's Security and Trust Organization, whose core mission is to ensure Cisco meets its security and privacy obligations to its customers, regulators, employees, and stakeholders. Before joining Cisco, Brad was Adobe’s first chief security officer. Brad also serves as an advisory board member for both the Silicon Valley Global Innovation and Sands Capital Ventures Industry organizations and sits on the program committee for the RSA Executive Security Action Forum. 

Srinath Kuruvadi is the head of cloud security at Netflix, where he leads the security of the Netflix assets in the cloud. Before Netflix, Srinath spent more than 15 years building scalable security solutions and leading security teams at Google, Facebook, Snap, and Lyft, most recently as head of security and compliance at Mapbox. He brings a lot of breadth and deep technical knowledge in security and privacy areas with a background in software engineering applied to large-scale cloud environments. Srinath was born and raised in Bangalore, India, and holds a master's degree in computer science from North Carolina State University and bachelor's degree in computer science from BITS Pilani in India.

Elena Kvochko, SAP's Chief Trust Officer, leads philanthropic efforts, including for Refugees International, Big Change, and women in technology initiatives. She has worked in enterprise technology and cybersecurity in executive roles at Bank of America and, previously, as chief information officer in the global security division at Barclays. Elena was featured in the Top 100 CIOs; Leading CIOs — Who Happen to be Female list published by the CIO Magazine, Business Role Model of the Year by the Women in IT Awards, and Fortune Magazine's Most Powerful Women — International.