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To celebrate the start of this year’s  Cybersecurity Awareness Month and mark the very first post on this new site, I’d like to reshare an article I originally published on October 17, 2021. It highlights a book by Dr. Eric Cole. It is a simple, accessible read designed for all audiences, yet still highly relevant today. The book emphasizes that cybersecurity is a shared responsibility, connecting every individual, and underlines the importance of making informed, risk-based decisions to strengthen our collective security awareness.

I hope you find it as relevant and insightful today as when it was first shared.

Original Post:

I was getting ready to go on vacation for a couple of weeks back in early August and while listening to Dr. Eric Cole’s ”Life of a CISO” podcast (which by the way I totally recommend specially for those in Infosec management and executive positions or those who aspire to get into these type of roles) I came to know that he was releasing his much anticipated ”Cyber Crisis” book. I did not hesitate and ordered a hard copy of it to take it with me to the beach.

Cyber Crisis is a security book for everyone, from non-security readers to experienced IT professionals. It is an easy read, it does not go deep in any technical concepts but in my opinion it addresses the main goal of raising cybersecurity awareness. For those not in the security field this book is a complete eye opener, with facts and examples it shows you how “cybersecurity is a silent killer. Most people are completely unaware that it’s happening until it is too late”. The book talks about how we are all targets for cyber-criminals and how it is our responsibility to make security oriented decisions when our information (personal, business, family, etc.) is at stake.

For seasoned IT Security professional this book is still a must read. Most (if not all) of the concepts covered on this book will be well known to you. But this book brings you back to the baseline, it reminds you that in order to solve complex security problems we have to never forget the basic of security. With all our busy lives and the struggles of the day-to-day specific security and the specific complexities that each of the organizations we are working with/for represent. The challenges sometimes we tend to focus 

I really like how this book over emphasizes on the fact that we need to ask the right questions. Cyber Security is not the government’s responsibility, or the security team of your companies responsibility it is OUR responsibility of users of the internet. We are all targets and its huge mistake to think otherwise (comparing your assets with a large multi-million dollar assets just doesn’t make sense). But in reality as an attacker you know that the success probabilities to attack a firm that invests millions on security are way lower than attacking a company that invests only thousands of dollars, or even worse an individual that only invests a couple of hundred dollars in security. We are all exposed and the only true is that sooner or later we‘ll be the target and it is better to be prepared with some of the best practices outline in the book.

Next time you add some value to your business or personal applications/network as yourself the follow questions:

• What is the value I am getting
• What is the security risk / exposure I am getting for adding this value
• Is it worth it?

Just by asking ourselves these three simple questions we are going to start making risk based decisions that will improve our security posture.

The book has the following nine chapters:

1. We are all Targets
2. We Live in Cyberspace
3. The Haskers are here
4. Mobile Weaknesses
5. Your Life, Hanging in the Cloud
6. They’re in your Business
7. National Infrastructure Attack
8. Cyberspace: A Place with No Borders
9. Surviving the Cyber Crisis

All of them touching the topics of discussion in layman terms but a from crucial angle, becoming an eye-opener and bringing awareness in all areas touched.

In sumary this is a fantastic book written by an authority in the Information Security word. Dr Eric Cole’s put this book in a way that is going to be easy to digest to all audiences. The way in which he brings cyber security awareness is just fantastic. All the security information given in this book will be applicable to your role at your workplace, your business, and with your home and personal life.