Amazon’s 2 new cybersecurity initiatives
Amazon will make its Security Awareness training available for individuals and businesses to educate and help protect against cyberattacks and offer free Multi-Factor Authentication devices to customers.
Amazon has announced two new initiatives to support further cybersecurity best practices for other businesses and its customers. First, Amazon will make its Security Awareness training available to businesses and individuals. This training has been developed for its employees, and Amazon intends to roll the product out in October. In addition, it has also announced that it will offer a free multi-factor authentication (MFA) device to its qualified AWS customers. This device is designed to protect an organization’s environment against cyberattacks further.
“A fundamental problem when addressing current cybersecurity threats is education, which is why we’re excited to share our Amazon Security Awareness training for free to help organizations and individuals understand how to navigate and fight against security events,” said Steve Schmidt, Chief Information Security Officer of AWS.
“By giving qualified AWS customers access to free MFA tokens, we’ve made it even easier for companies to use this powerful tool to protect their data and important technology assets,” he said.
Amazon Security Awareness
As Proofpoint shares in its report, the cost and number of phishing attacks have drastically risen in the last 18 months. These attacks are socially engineered and can be very convincing to anyone if targeted well. Identifying these types of attacks can take hours of training, as they are varied and ever-evolving, and many organizations do not have the resources to educate their employees. Amazon’s curriculum seeks to be concise and educational. This curriculum will be available to both organizations and individuals free of charge and contain videos and online assessments. According to Amazon, the course information uses proven neuroscience and adult learning principles to ensure that users retain the information.
Multi-Factor Authentication
Amazon will also roll out multi-factor authentication to qualified AWS account holders from October, free of charge. This development will be essential in protecting personal documents, proprietary customer information, companies’ technology infrastructure assets. This MFA will come in the form of an MFA device, adding a layer of protection against phishing, session hijacking and malware attacks.
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AWS users can access the AWS Management Console by typing in their passwords and then touching the security plugged into their computer’s USB port. Customers can also use their MFA devices to safely access multiple AWS accounts and other token-enabled applications, such as GitHub, Gmail, and Dropbox.
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