October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. This means that October is the main month in the security industry. What this means for you is that you should be paying attention to new cyber security initiatives occurring this month, and maybe even attend a lecture or two about safety in the cyber world.

Since Adobe was recently taken down by hackers and sites are being hacked regularly, let's take a moment to go over some basic cyber security tips.

A Good Backup Plan Is Essential

What did Adobe do last night when millions of user accounts were hacked? There's no doubt that the company went through a state of panic, but a backup plan was also in place. Adobe set its IT team to work figuring out what happened, called authorities, and alerted users as well as press.

In addition, Adobe spent some time reassuring users, and letting those millions impacted know what to do next. Because of these security measures, Adobe's issue is a big one, but it could have been a lot bigger. The company is still scrambling to figure things out, but a cyber security measure should always be in place just in case hacks happen - and the bigger the company, the more often hacks will happen.

What Else Can You Do?

Let's use Adobe as an example again. Even though the company had encrypted all user passwords, those passwords were still obtained by hackers. But, those hackers will have to spend some time decrypting them. So, make sure that all of your users have encrypted passwords, and that your security system is as secure as possible.

It's also vital that you prepare for a possible hosting overload, as was the case with the government's Obamacare site. Yesterday, this new healthcare site was officially opened, and that caused a flood of Americans to visit the site - something that developers did not prepare for. If you want to keep your site secure, make sure that proper hosting management methods are in place too.

Other Cyber Security Month Measures

If you head to the U.S. government's Homeland Security website, you will see a number of different cyber security measures that you can take to keep your site safe. You can't always prevent cyber attacks, but you can certainly find out ways to set prevention and disaster measures in place just in case something happens.

In other words, it's good to have a safety net! One last note: if you plan to move to cloud hosting at all, you may want to look into key splitting, so that you can split up your security keys for extra security! There's lots to learn about cyber security. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

What do you do to make sure that your site is safe from hacks? Do you have a disaster prevention measure in place? Do you have a plan set up for when things go wrong? Let me know what your tips are below, or leave a note on Facebook.