McAfee, Inc., the leader in Intrusion Prevention and Security Risk Management, announced its support of National Cyber Security Awareness Month with a special offer for small businesses. The company joins federal and state governments, major Internet corporations, associations, and universities to actively promote awareness of cyber security issues and online identity theft in October in conjunction with National Cyber Security Awareness Month.
Organized by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), National Cyber Security Awareness Month is an intensive awareness campaign reaching out to consumers, small businesses, educators, children and other stakeholders to raise awareness of the importance of computer security and to educate them about practices and technologies they can use to protect themselves online.
During National Cyber Security Awareness Month, McAfee has a special offer to encourage businesses to protect themselves against cyber threats. Throughout the month of October, small businesses will receive a 30-day trial of the recently released McAfee Secure Messaging Service solutions. The services offer automatic and immediate email protection against the ever-increasing threats of spam, phishing, viruses, inappropriate content, denial of service attacks and directory harvest attacks. The Secure Messaging Service solutions, formerly referred to as McAfee Managed Mail Protection, have been designed to help businesses optimize resources, increase productivity and prevent company policy compromises.
National Cyber Security Awareness Month will feature a series of programs and events focused on various topics of computer security. Consumers, businesses and youth will have access to tips, toolkits and other online resources that have been developed to promote learning about computer security issues, including:
- Top 8 Cyber Security Practices
- Public Service Announcement
- How Safe Are You? (a self-test)
- Free Security Scans (from third parties)
- Beginner’s Guides
National Cyber Security Awareness Month is also intended to promote a number of online studies and organizational resources available on the NCSA web site (www.staysafeonline.org).
“It is important for the public and private sectors to work together to educate users about the threats lurking in the online world and how users can empower themselves to ensure comprehensive protection,” said Douglas Sabo, director of government relations and corporate citizenship for McAfee, and a board member of the NCSA. “National Cyber Security Awareness Month provides helpful information and end-user tools, and we are pleased to be a supporter.”
“With as many as 10 million Americans falling victim to identity theft each year, we feel that it is critically important to heighten awareness and educate Internet users of all ages about the dangers that lurk online,” said Ron Teixeira, executive director, NCSA. “Our goal is to work with as many agencies and associations as possible to spread the word and help empower users by providing them with the tips, tools and knowledge to stay safe online.”
McAfee’s Secure Messaging Service offering greatly reduces the infrastructure required to process messages by stopping spam, viruses and directory harvest attacks at the perimeter. The services ensure this by quarantining spam and virus infected emails before they enter the network, in some cases, reducing mail volumes by 70 to 80 percent. Additionally, customizable spam settings and whitelisting/blacklisting functionality give end users personal control to manage their own definitions of what is legitimate email, and what is unwanted email. McAfee Secure Messaging Services are centrally managed through a Web portal, so quarantines, users and e-mail policy updates are easily managed across e-mail servers worldwide on a 24×7 basis. The portal also offers simplified reporting for around the clock visibility into a company’s email security status.
