Hi, I’m Michelle

Not too long ago, I started my own cyber security awareness and training company, Cyber Safe Workforce LLC, with one ambitious goal:

To help organizations teach employees cyber security basics to reduce risk to their business.

What does this mean?  It means I want to keep your employees from downloading malicious programs or giving out access to the network (accidentally, of course).

From working with clients and talking to CIOs, CISOs, Technology Directors, and IT Security Managers, I realized something: The perception is security training goes in one ear and out the other for the average user.  Computer security (or IT security or cybersecurity or whatever you want to call it) is boring.  It makes people fall asleep.  Either that, or it’s over their head.

My goal is to change that.  Security training CAN be more engaging.  It can even be… FUN.  OK, maybe not fun but at least straightforward and helpful.

Last summer I was doing some volunteer teaching on cyber security in my community, and I’ll never forget a particular response.  The scenario included two Facebook websites.  One is real, one is fake.  How would you determine which one is real?  (They looked exactly the same.)  The response was, “I guess I would try to login.”  My mind was blown.

Then it occurred to me, most people just don’t know what is risky behavior online and what’s not.

We need to change that because the bad guys are getting the upper hand.

(By the way, don’t try to log on if there’s even a hint of suspicion—a forged website WILL steal your login information.)

In the past few years, we’ve been witness to numerous data breaches: OPM, Ashley Madison, Sony, Target, and countless others.  Data breaches lead to identity theft, tax fraud, theft of funds, brand reputation loss, etc.

Are you wondering why antivirus, firewalls, and spam filters aren’t preventing problems? They are, but they can’t do it 100% of the time.

There’s a component in this equation that is between the screen and the chair.  It starts with you.

Not with him or her or your kids or your IT guy/gal.  It starts with YOU.

Here’s my promise to you if you decide to take this journey with me:

There are no dumb questions.  I don’t know everything.  I’ve picked up a thing or two in my previous line of work as a software engineer in a secure environment.  My goal is to simplify protection measures for the greatest threats with a human component and share that with you.

Sincerely,

Michelle Ward
CEO and Founder, Cyber Safe Workforce LLC