Phishing for security | Sumner Mayor update
Published 10:06 am Wednesday, March 25, 2015
The following is written by Sumner Mayor Dave Enslow:
Do you know what phishing is? I do because I took a training course to help me understand and try to protect myself against cyber threats. All of our City staff and elected officials are taking the same training – no exceptions. Why? Because in addition to patrolling the streets and sweeping the streets and providing clean water, a big function of the City is to safeguard records. We hold a lot of information about properties, customers, victims, etc., and it’s our job to keep that information as safe as possible. When I was growing up, “cyber threats” were something you might see at the Saturday matinee. But today, they have become the ten-car pile-up of the information superhighway. We might not be able to completely avoid it, but at least we can be wearing our seat belt!
From Target to Primera, we are now all too familiar with the importance of cyber security. It turns out that the weakest link is not a faulty firewall. It’s all of us clicking and surfing. In an effort to find a good deal, we may unwittingly open up our files to hackers through schemes like phishing.
All city staff and officials are taking training to help us identify hazards and avoid them. We have to take this training every year – all of us, from our street crews to council members to the Judge and, of course, yours truly. While our training was specific to a business, there is also training online such as Carnegie Cyber Academy, which is just for families. I encourage you to check it out and take steps to avoid becoming a victim of cyber threats.
