Staying out of the jaws of a cyber attack

Please note that the webcasts associated with the Cyber Shark Event are available on-demand.

In looking at what event topics are trending on govevents.com, security and more specifically, cyber security, continue to rise to the top in terms of sheer numbers of events. For good reason though--every week seems to bring a new report of a security breach in a major consumer brand. In fact, just last week, the largest breach ever reported was attributed to a Russian crime ring that stole 1.2 billion username and password combinations from companies and individuals worldwide. Of course the Edward Snowden leak at NSA is still top of mind as he was just granted another three-year stay in Russia. While this news is real and alarming, it is coming at such a steady rate that some people are starting to tune it out, reading headlines and saying, "oh, another one." Even with the media attention, it is important to look at the reality of cyber threats.

Let's look at a couple numbers:

• The Pentagon reports getting an average of 10 million attempted cyber incidents per day

• In 2014, 1.25 billion email addresses were found for sale on the black market

• In 2013, the U.S. Government demand for cyber experts reached 15,600

• In 2012, 70% of state and local CISOs reported a breach in network security

In this case the hype does live up to reality. To better publicize these realities and host open discussions on mitigating cyber threat, government IT solutions provider, Carahsoft is holding a Cyber Shark Event to coincide with Discovery Channel's uber-popular Shark Week August 10-16. Throughout the week, the company will host webcast panel discussions and twitter chats with government cyber experts to share the reality behind the cybersecurity hype and discuss best practices for securing the agency network. Join the week-long conversation on Twitter using the event hashtag #CyberSharks.

Image courtesy of Carahsoft.