Stop. Think. Connect.
That’s what a high-powered coalition of federal agencies, tech companies, retailers and non-profit groups want you to do every time you use the Internet.
[Monday], the group launched a milestone public awareness campaign. The goal: to ingrain “stop-think-connect” as deeply into culture as the seatbelt reminder “click-it-or-ticket” and Smokey Bear’s quote, “Only you can prevent forest fires.”
“Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility for all of us,” says Joe Sullivan, Facebook’s chief security officer. “People will have a better experience on the Internet if they do some basic things.”
The campaign stems directly from President Obama’s May 2009 pronouncement that the U.S. will assume a leadership role in making the Internet safer.
Overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, the coalition includes Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Intel, AT&T, Visa, PayPal, Wal-Mart, Costco, the Department of Justice and the IRS among its 28 founding members.
The members understand that each of their respective organizations stands to benefit from a unified effort to advance public awareness about Internet threats, says Michael Kaiser, executive director of the non-profit National Cyber Security Alliance. Each will incorporate the stop-think-connect slogan and theme into existing and new public education initiatives.
Facebook, for instance, is preparing a seven-question quiz, which it will make available sometime this month on its security issues page and home page. It will also donate 35 million ad impressions to promote the quiz, which espouses best practices for passwords and browser use.
This is all intended to slow down cybercriminals, who are having a field day. One estimate puts identity theft losses, much of it due to online scams, at $4.5 billion in the past two years, making it the fastest-growing crime in America, says Kaiser.
Online safety has yet to be elevated to a major public safety issue, akin to the way society views drunk driving, forest fires and seat…