As you may know, October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. Organized by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), National Cyber Security Awareness Month is an intensive awareness campaign reaching out to consumers, small businesses, educators, children and other stakeholders in order to raise awareness about the importance of computer security and to educate individuals about practices they can use to protect themselves online.

As part of the McAfee Initiative to Fight Cybercrime, announced in October 2008, McAfee is kicking off our McAfee Cares – Cybersecurity for Kids program to teach K-12 students across the U.S. about cybersafety, cyberethics and cybersecurity as part of the month-long activities. McAfee employees in Santa Clara, St. Paul, Plano and Beaverton will be the first to teach this curriculum in their communities. We are very excited to note that over 100 McAfee employees have volunteered to teach students in their local community as part of this pilot program. And because they already see the great value in these important topics, many of the schools have requested more than the initial planned sessions.

NCSA’s 2008 National Cybersafety, Cyberethics, Cybersecurity Baseline Study found that only 22% of educators are comfortable teaching about cyber bullying, identity theft and other types of cyber crime. The NCSA worked with the Department of Education to create curriculum to help fill the gap in cybersecurity education. The curriculum is designed to arm students with age-appropriate tools and checklists surrounding cyber security, cyber safety and cyber ethics, which they can apply to their online experiences. McAfee is adding additional value to the curriculum by including links to our many free resources available to families through programs such as the Cybercrime Response Unit and our Security Advice Center.

Every day, McAfee employees work to protect families, businesses, and governmental agencies from skyrocketing malware and increasingly sophisticated global cybercriminals. We are pleased to bring this program to students in order to extend our impact within our local community.

Though many McAfee employees will be conducting school visits during October, we recognize that cyber security education makes for an important lesson any time of the year!

Tags: Corporate Responsibility, cybercrime, Family Safety, security