This year's been rubbish. But not all rubbish, so we wanted to reflect on some of the positives we're taking from 2020. With the 12 days of Christmas coming up, here are our 12 highlights of 2020.
1. The team Despite the challenges of this year, we feel so lucky to be part of a team where we all care about each other, our clients and the work we do. We share the same drive to do our bit to make the world a safer place and have some fun along the way. We love our team and couldn't do this without them đ
2. Our clients Over the last year weâre thrilled to have helped our clients go from strength to strength. We've continued to work with clients we've known for years as well as engaging with new organisations. Find out what some of our clients say about our work!
3. Leading the awareness campaign for the CV19 group The Cyber Volunteers 19 (CV19) group was set up by Lisa Forte, Daniel Card and Radoslaw Gnat following the global outbreak of COVID-19. We were asked to lead the awareness part of the project and were delighted to create two award-winning campaigns for the CV19 group, the first on phishing, the second on physical security.
4. Outreach This year we created our first Cygenta Activity Book, recorded our Chatter Overflow YouTube Series, and developed activities for lots of great outreach initiatives. Not forgetting our 'we asked cyber security professionals series' and our cyber security writing competition CyberVibe, which had over 600 entries!
5. Cyber Security Awareness Month 2020 In October alone, we engaged with over 8,000 individuals in our awareness-raising activities, for 11 clients over 18 live sessions in 17 countries around the world. We released weekly guidance documents to support individuals and organisations with top tips on key cyber secrity topics. The move to virtual presented some challenges, but we throughly enjoyed Cyber Security Awareness Month this year.
6. Dr Jess' opening keynote for RSA 2020 Back in February, Jess delivered a session on Fear and Loathing in Cyber Security: An Analysis of the Psychology of Fear at RSA in San Francisco. This session drew on extensive research in the sociology and psychology of fear to explain why we canât simply scare people into security but how we can harness human bias to have a more positive impact on cyber security awareness, behaviour and culture.
7. Largest IoT / smart building security test As companies start to explore the meaning of smart buildings, their infrastructure grows and our testing has to grow with them. In 2020, we conducted our largest scale smart building IoT test. This involved a test of infrastructure and physical security for a global financial group.
8. Sharing resources
In 2020 we have shared a whopping 71 blog posts and videos! We also raised awareness of key trends by providing up-to-date free guidance to help protect people again the latest threats. If you haven't already, don't forget to subscribe to our mailing list.
9. Dr Jess' book Confident Cyber Security became number 1 bestseller In September, Dr Jess' book Confident Cyber Security (published by Kogan Page) became a number one Amazon bestseller within hours of publication. It entered Amazon's top 1000 books - out of 6 million!
10. Awards We were absolutely delighted to be nominated for 4 awards in the Security Serious Unsung Heroes awards. Cygenta was nominated for best cyber security awareness campaign, Madeline was nominated for rising star, and FC was nominated for mentor and ethical hacker of the year. We were thrilled to pick up two awards, click here to find out what they were!
11. Cygenta challenges Throughout lockdown, we began Cygenta challenges within the team. This was not only great fun, but also showed how competitive some of the team are đ The challenges included cyber security cocktails, food creations, drawing, song writing, baking, pumpkin carving and much more!
12. Being at home In 2019 we went on a total of 56 flights and visited 23 cities in 12 countries. Of course, this year has been very different. We have missed travelling to fabulous places to support our clients, and seeing many friends and loved ones face-to-face, but there been some positives. We have spent more time with our families, taken on new hobbies, baked (of course banana bread) and became avid gardeners!
And finally, a big bonus highlight....
People like you, who support Cygenta! Thank you from all of us đ