This October, as we kick off National Cyber Security Awareness Month, cybersecurity is at the forefront of the national conversation, and staying safe online is more challenging and more important than ever before.  

With news breaking regularly on hacks that affect millions of people, like the recent revelation that 500 million user accounts at Yahoo! had been breached, it can be confusing to know what to do. And with that confusion comes a lack of confidence in online systems. 

A recent survey from IEEE Transmitter finds that consumers don't have a lot of trust, with 72 percent saying they find online banking to be a high-risk activity, and 60 percent say looking up banking or mortgage information is risky. Syncing to the cloud is perceived as high risk by 53 percent of respondents, and just under half also cited social networking and email as risky. 

While they don't have confidence in today's online banking, the majority of respondents said they believed that mobile payment systems would be reliably secure by 2030, but 46 percent say that today they're concerned about payment hacks. And only 26 percent of you are using cloud storage, saying it's their least favorite option for data storage.

How can you be more confident when it comes to staying safe online? 

We have a lot of good information and advice coming your way this month from some of RSA Conference's experts so that you, and your business, can operate online safely and securely. 

Sandra Toms, VP and curator of RSA Conference, explores what it really means to stop, think and connect with your online behavior, and how taking the time to be thoughtful can be the difference between falling victim to an attack and being able to avoid it. 

RSA Conference advisory board member Todd Inskeep kicked off Cyber Security Awareness Month, writing about the top things even security experts forget, and he'll join us again later in the month to talk about how you can create a culture of security in the workplace. 

Advisory board member Wendy Nather will be exploring the ways that your customers are your biggest risk when it comes to cyberattacks, and board member Ed Skoudis will take a look at how we can stay safe in our ever more connected world, and how we can build resilience into our critical systems. 

Please join us as we explore these topics and remember: practice good password hygiene!