Cyber Security Awareness Month is an internationally recognized campaign held each October to help the public learn more about the importance of cyber security. This campaign helps Canadians stay secure online by teaching them simple steps to protect themselves and their devices. In 2021, Cyber Security Awareness Month in Canada takes place October 1 to October 31 and the theme is “Life Happens Online”.

Now more than ever, it’s important to understand the risks of cybersecurity and how to protect your information and your identity. Each week, we’ll be showcasing the many ways the internet has helped us to live our lives as normally as possible this year and let you know how you can stay connected safely.

This year, life happens online

The internet really came through this year. With the help of our devices, the internet let us spend time with our friends and families, share special moments and make our lives feel as normal as possible — even when they weren’t. By protecting our devices, accounts and connections, we can make sure we never miss a moment of our online lives.

Week 4: Families and businesses

This past year has been a difficult one for many Canadians, but two groups have faced unique challenges: kids (who are missing school, friends and activities) and small and medium businesses (who had to shift suddenly from business as usual). This week we’re splitting the focus between these two groups and talking about:

• Keeping kids and families safe online
• Running a cyber safe business

RED RHINO RESOURCES:

Following this week’s theme, we gathered a few resources for you to read and stay informed:

Imagine this: your best salesperson has decided to part ways with your company. They are privy to everything from your strategic documents to the client lists you’ve spent years building. With all the information they can walk away with, employees are often a greater risk than external hackers.

Read our guide: How to protect your data when employees leave

Skype. RingCentral. WhatsApp. Teams. We use these popular Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) services on a daily basis; to keep in touch with friends and family – whether they’re a few streets, time zones, or continents over.

Read our article: The benefits of VOIP for business.

This year we’ve been helping a lot of clients stay connected and work seamlessly from home! One key way we can do this is by implementing a voice network solution, otherwise known as Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

Read our article: Why businesses are switching to VOIP.

Dark Web. Chances are you’ve heard this ominous-sounding name before. The online criminal underworld that simply exists in a hidden part of the internet where it mostly escapes the attention of day-to-day law-abiding web users. Many small and medium-sized business owners don’t realize how vulnerable they are to the criminals who operate on the dark web.

Read our article: Identity theft on the dark web: The impact of a data breach.

We live in an age of always-on, multichannel commerce – where anyone, anywhere, can buy anything at anytime. It’s not just the big brands like Nike and Apple we’ve come to expect round-the-clock service from. Increasingly it’s expected of small businesses offering B2B services to do the same. So how can you make your business more digitally available? It’s not as big a transformation as you may think.

Read our guide: Simple ways to boost your small business online.