Cybersecurity Awareness Month and the Roman Empire

20 years ago, the month of October was declared Cybersecurity Awareness Month by the President of the United States and Congress. The intent was to encourage public and private sectors to work together to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity. At QWERX, we think about cybersecurity all year round; almost as often as men think about the Roman Empire. Sometimes, we think about both!

For example, the ancient Roman approach to protecting their valuable assets was focused on creating physical barriers and using humans to stand guard. The protection offered by these methods varied from strong to weak, depending upon the strength of the barrier and the individuals on patrol. There were only a limited number of ways to steal what was valuable at that time -- land, money, documents, art -- which made it easier to plan for these scenarios. The Romans were able to mount an effective defense against theft simply by strengthening the barriers and adding more guards.

Unfortunately, the same approach to protecting assets is still being followed today. Conventional thinking continues to offer the concept that security can be "strong" or "weak." Cybersecurity vendors are lining up to sell solutions that promise to "strengthen" the barriers around or inside of a network and add more guards to alert to an intrusion. The relentless and ongoing barrage of massive data breaches is a clear indicator that this approach is not working.

We think the key to the problem is not how companies go about protecting their assets; instead the vulnerability is inherent in the assets themselves.

The valuables that are being protected in the 21st century are digital, stored in networks, servers, and clouds. The most direct way to access these valuables is with an authorized credential, meaning that the credential itself must now be treated as a valuable and protected as such. This is where QWERX bucks the system. We don't promise to build a wall around your digital credentials and station guards to shout when it's been stolen. Instead, we designed and patented a credential that can't be stolen.

QWERX has developed the only solution on the market that truly changes how machine identities are protected and continuously verified. This innovative approach to device authentication eliminates a primary vector of cyberattack by blocking unauthorized devices from accessing a network, without relying on vulnerable static credentials.

We'd love to share more about our innovative technology and how it can bring your enterprise security into the 21st century. You can connect with us here.