Wrapping up a Busy Internet Safety Month
Today is the last day of June, which is Internet Safety Month in the United States. (There is an international Safer Internet Day in February). Microsoft was busy with a number of safety initiatives throughout the month of June.
On June 1, we participated in the East West Institute Cybersecurity Summit. Scott Charney, corporate vice president of Trustworthy Computing, led discussion for Microsoft across a range of critical areas including cyberthreats, adoption of a public health model for Internet security, and broad-based efforts to promote or use collective defense to help protect consumers.
On June 8, we held the Microsoft 2011 US Innovative Education Forum (IEF), where bullying was a key theme, with several teacher applicants submitting lessons that use Microsoft technologies to help address the issue of bullying. These teachers are among 100 U.S. educators selected to attend the U.S. IEF, presented by Microsoft Partners in Learning.
Finally on June 27, Microsoft received an award from the White House and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the company’s work in helping to keep individuals and families safer when they go online. In a ceremony at the Eisenhower Executive Office building of the White House and presided over by White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, and U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, we were presented with an award for a video we team produced entitled, “Stop. Think. Connect.” That three-word phrase is the product of the Stop. Think. Connect. messaging campaign.
We continued to publish more online safety materials, including a new article, “ Use location services more safely ,” to help educate consumers on the risks of using location services and how to do so more safely, and began the publication of “The Week in Online Safety: A weekly global view of online safety news, policy developments, research, and influence.”
At Microsoft, we are committed to promoting online safety every month, but we did have a very busy June.
-- David Burt, CISSP, CIPP