The FBI San Francisco Division is announcing a new cybersecurity awareness campaign to deter business and private citizens from becoming victims of cyberattacks.
The campaign will last from June 1 to September 2 and will focus on cybersecurity risks and how to prevent them through media appearances, social media campaigns, and presentations aimed at local industry groups.
“When a cybersecurity incident does occur, the FBI can respond quickly and effectively to investigate the attack, identify the criminal actors, and help companies mitigate the damage of the intrusion,” said FBI San Francisco Special Agent in Charge Sean Ragan. “Cyber risk is business risk, and cybersecurity is national security. We all need to work together to strengthen our country’s cyber defenses.”
The San Francisco and Silicon Valley area of California has been a historically tech rich environment that has become a prime target for cyber actors to attack with various methods.
Some of the attack methods that the campaign aims at deterring are ransomware attacks, supply chain attacks and critical infrastructure attacks.
They will also be discussing some of the following methods to try to deter cyber actors from attacking:
- Identify your company’s most sensitive information and encrypt it. Hackers will often steal this information and attempt to extort companies by threatening to leak it online.
- Ensure your organization has an incident response plan that includes the FBI.
- Ensure you have offline backups of critical data.
- When you realize your system is compromised, cybercriminals may have already taken your data. There are several red flags to look for that might indicate a cyberattack, including passwords not working, a large number of pop-up ads, unexplained online activity, slow-running devices, and altered system settings.
The FBI will also be attending the 2022 RSA Conference as part of the ongoing cybersecurity awareness campaign.
