Historical security awareness module

We sometimes mention historical incidents in the awareness materials but this is the first time we have gone into any depth on the history of information security.  May’s brand new awareness module plucks interesting stories and anecdotes from the annals of history to set people thinking, drawing out the information security aspects that remain relevant today.

Our timeline stretches from pre-history to the future.  Novel security technologies and techniques developed in wartime include both offensive weapons and defensive measures.  The use of information as a weapon is a theme throughout history, hence information security is far older than any of us.

This is not a history lesson as such - we have been very selective about the issues we have covered, with the aim of finding items of interest and relevance to employees in general, management and tecchies.

We prepared the awareness materials to satisfy the following learning objectives:

• Inform employees generally about the history of security, entertaining them and sparking their interest through a potted selection of security-relevant incidents and anecdotes spanning the millennia from evolutionary pre-history to science fiction;

• Point out that many well-known ancient threats, attack methods and techniques are still around, while others re-emerge from time to time;

• Prompt employees to consider the relevance of information to battles and wars, and hence the value of protecting and exploiting information in business and other contexts;

• Identify historical controls, technologies and techniques that remain valuable in securing today’s information and other assets;

• Act as a platform, the creative basis on which you can customize, adapt and enhance the materials to suit your own security awareness purposes without having to start from scratch.