As echoed frequently within the ranks of the military: “Proper Planning and Practice Prevents Piss Poor Performance.” While this truism is most often utilized to whip our nation’s first line of defense into fighting shape, it’s a credo that our cybersecurity community would do well to heed — especially given the fact that the space cybersecurity occupies in the minds of the general populace, while growing, is yet nascent at best.

Flashback to 2004 and the genesis of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM), an initiative created to raise awareness in the U.S. around the importance of cybersecurity. Founded by the National Cyber Security Division within the Department of Homeland Security and the nonprofit National Cyber Security Alliance, NCSAM has taken place each October, since its mid-aughts inception, in efforts to ensure all Americans have knowledge of the resources and tools they need to be safer and more secure online.