Avoid e-mail hypnosis:

Have you ever driven home from work and, once you’re parked in your garage, realize that you don’t really remember getting there? That’s because we drive back and forth to work on the same route every single day. We drive the same roads, stop at the same stoplights, and turn the same turns. We proceed in a state of “auto-pilot,” thinking about everything EXCEPT the drive home!

This same state of “self-hypnosis” can occur as we plod through our e-mail inboxes. Way too often we fall into this ritual of opening an e-mail, doing what it says, responding to it, and then moving on to process the next message. We plod quickly onward, all in the hopes that there will come a time when the inbox is no longer full!

But we must be careful not to end up on “auto-pilot” as we process incoming e-mail messages. Scammers and social engineers can send a message that looks legitimate if we’re not careful. Attachments can be viruses. Links can be to “drive-by” attack sites, or to phishing sites. Or just as bad: we can address a message to the wrong person!

E-mail is one of the most vulnerable assets in our system. When using e-mail, we need to be extra vigilant, and not to fall into a state of self-hypnosis.

Click here for more information about User Awareness Training.

Intended Use:

The purpose of Vigilize is to respond to ISO’s complaints that users never read ISO’s “ongoing security awareness training reminders.”  Our tweets are designed to be copied into the subject line of your awareness reminder, with the language on these pages put into the body.  The goal is that the user will have to read the subject line to know to delete the message, and if they understand the subject line the reminder is communicated.  If not, they will go into the message and read the reminder.

Feel free to use Vigilize in your own Security Awareness Program.  Let us know if you have any ideas, suggested tweets, or ways to improve this FREE service.