What CISA’s 2026 Cybersecurity Awareness Month Guidance Recommends
Every October, a wave of vendor blog posts repeats four tips (strong passwords, MFA, phishing, updates) and calls the list “CISA guidance.” That part is accurate as far as it goes. The basics CISA promotes have barely changed in years.
What the recycled lists leave out is everything else CISA published this year. The 2026 guidance asks organizations to do more than cover the four basics, and it stops short of topics some vendors now attribute to the agency. If you’re benchmarking your cybersecurity awareness program against federal expectations this month, this post covers what CISA says, what changed from last year, and where its guidance ends.
Two themes from two organizations
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCA) co-lead Cybersecurity Awareness Month. This year, they’re running different themes.
CISA’s theme is “Securing the Next 250,” which recognizes the United States’ 250th anniversary and focuses on building a secure digital future. NCA’s theme is “Don’t Make It Easy for Them.”
Some October posts merge the two into a single theme. They’re separate campaigns, and this post covers CISA’s.
CISA frames the stakes in terms of continuity: “Whenever critical infrastructure is disrupted, so are the businesses and communities that depend on vital services,” said Acting CISA Director Nick Andersen in the Oct. 1 launch announcement.
Four foundational practices, addressed to organizations
CISA’s launch announcement lists four practices it calls foundational, saying they “should be as automatic as buckling a seatbelt”:
- Teach employees to avoid phishing scams
- Require strong passwords
- Require multifactor authentication (MFA)
- Update software
The behaviors will look familiar. Look at who the announcement addresses: Organizations that own, operate, or support critical infrastructure. The verbs are “teach” and “require,” so these read as program expectations, which is a useful framing when you report your awareness program’s coverage to leadership.
CISA also publishes an individual-facing version of the same four steps that pairs MFA with a password manager. The NICCS page presents the steps for “homes, organizations, and communities,” and adds a note to “use phishing-resistant MFA where available.”
The first practice lands squarely on security awareness programs. CISA says “recognizing and reporting suspicious emails and links may prevent cyber intrusions,” and its phishing guidance pairs reporting with recognition.
CISA’s Cross-Sector Cybersecurity Performance Goals 2.0 (CPG 2.0), the voluntary baseline behind much of this year’s guidance, goes further on training. Goal 3.J recommends “at least annual cybersecurity training for all organizational users,” covering topics such as “recognizing social engineering attempts” and “reporting attacks and suspicious activity,” plus role-based training for specialized roles, such as finance personnel and senior leadership.
Where NINJIO fits. People need to practice spotting a phishing attempt and a fast way to flag one. PHISH3D gives employees realistic simulations to practice on, while ALERT adds one-click reporting, so suspicious messages reach your security team instead of sitting in an inbox.
What CISA says about AI
CISA gives AI one practical note, and it appears on its phishing page. The launch announcement acknowledges that “nation-state backed cyber threats continue to increase” and that advanced technology is changing “both threats and security,” but it doesn’t follow that that context with AI-specific actions.
On the phishing page, CISA says poor grammar and misspellings used to be a common sign of a scam. In the era of AI, phishing has gotten worse. CISA says, “Some emails will now have perfect grammar and spelling, so look out for the other signs.”
The other signs that CISA lists are urgent or emotionally appealing language, requests for personal and financial information, untrusted shortened URLs, and incorrect email addresses or links.
It’s a short caveat with real consequences for training design. If your awareness program still teaches people to catch phishing by looking for typos, that cue is disappearing. Recognizing pressure tactics like urgency and emotional appeal has to do more of the work, and that kind of recognition is harder under stress.
Where NINJIO fits. People respond to different pressures. NINJIO phishing simulations test each person against seven emotional pressures: Fear, urgency, greed, curiosity, social pressure, opportunity, and obedience. The results build an Emotional Susceptibility Profile (ESP) that shows which pressures work on them, so awareness training can focus there.
What’s new in CISA’s 2026 cybersecurity best practices for organizations
This is the section where most October roundups skip. In its launch announcement, CISA asks organizations to log system activity, back up data in line with their recovery point objective, encrypt data and devices, and report cyber incidents to CISA at cisa.gov/report.
Government entities are also pointed to .gov domains. Last year’s launch announcement lists only logging, backups, and encryption.
Two additions matter most for program owners: Incident response planning and disruption readiness. Both closely follow language in CPG 2.0, which CISA released in Dec. 2025.
1. Have an incident response plan and use it
CISA asks organizations to “develop, maintain, update, and regularly exercise IR plans for common threat scenarios such as ransomware attacks.” It also sets a floor: “IR plans should be reviewed and drilled on an annual basis at a minimum.” That language closely follows CPG 2.0 goal 1.C, Maintain Incident Response Plans.
The guidance is specific about who belongs in the exercise. CISA says drills should be realistic and “include all relevant stakeholders, such as organizational leadership and legal counsel, in addition to technical personnel.” A plan only the technical team has rehearsed hasn’t been tested with the people who make the biggest calls during an incident.
Does CISA require an incident response plan? The announcement uses “should,” and CISA presents the performance goals as voluntary, so for most organizations, this is a recommendation. CISA describes the goals as “a baseline for guiding investment, benchmarking progress, and reducing risk in measurable ways,” which makes them a useful reference when leadership or auditors ask how your plan compares.
2. Be prepared for system disruptions
CISA asks organizations to “develop and execute plans to recover and restore service to critical assets or systems that might be impacted by a cybersecurity incident.” The announcement and CPG 2.0 goal 6.A get concrete about what that can look like: Carrying out mission-essential “functions without access to critical assets or even internet access.” For example, by shifting to paper-based operations or radio communications.
A fallback like that depends on people as much as on planning. It only works if employees know when to switch and have practiced the handoff before they need it.
Where NINJIO fits. We cover that side of continuity in What Business Continuity Means for Your Human Layer.
The 3Rs for critical infrastructure operators
CISA invites owners and operators of critical infrastructure to join it in practicing the 3Rs of Cybersecurity: Reduce attack surfaces, replace end-of-support devices, and recover quickly to sustain operations. CISA aims this guidance specifically at critical infrastructure. For other organizations, the recovery piece overlaps with the disruption-readiness action above.
What CISA’s 2026 guidance does not cover
In the CISA materials we reviewed for this post, as of Oct. 7, 2026, CISA offers no guidance specific to deepfakes or voice-based social engineering. The launch announcement acknowledges that advanced technology is changing the threat landscape, and the phishing page notes AI-polished emails, but neither offers AI-specific defenses. If you see CISA cited on deepfakes this Cybersecurity Awareness Month, check the source.
Where NINJIO fits. Download NINJIO’s NCSAM Kit 2026, which includes a tip sheet that covers deepfake video alongside AI-powered phishing, social engineering, and credential stuffing, with one proactive move to combat each.
Using CISA’s guidance as a benchmark
A practical way to read this year’s guidance is as a short audit of your own program:
- Phishing training: Employees learn to recognize and report phishing using the signs CISA lists beyond spelling and grammar.
- Incident response: Your plan has been reviewed and drilled within the last 12 months, with leadership and legal counsel in the exercise.
- Disruption readiness: Employees who run mission-essential functions know the manual fallback and have practiced it.
- Your own extensions: Anything your program covers beyond CISA, such as deepfake or voice-based attacks, is presented as your organization’s standard rather than a federal one.
CISA publishes its full set of resources on the Cybersecurity Awareness Month page and in the campaign toolkit.
If you’re using this month to benchmark your program, start with NINJIO’s NCSAM Kit 2026. It includes a tip sheet on this year’s biggest threats, a glossary of 40+ cybersecurity terms, a research report, and a NINJIO trailer.
NINJIO last updated this article on Oct. 7, 2026. It summarizes CISA’s public materials, so check CISA’s pages for the current text.
Frequently Asked Questions
CISA’s theme is “Securing the Next 250,” which recognizes the United States’ 250th anniversary. The National Cybersecurity Alliance, which co-leads the month, runs a separate theme, “Don’t Make It Easy for Them.”
CISA names four foundational practices: Teach employees to avoid phishing scams, require strong passwords, require MFA, and update software. For organizations, it also recommends logging, backups, encryption, reporting incidents to CISA, an incident response plan you exercise at least annually, and preparation for system disruptions.
CISA’s announcement says organizations should have an incident response plan and drill it at least annually. CISA presents its performance goals as voluntary. For most organizations, this is a recommendation. Some regulated sectors have separate requirements.
Last year’s launch announcement listed logging, backups, and encryption for organizations. This year’s guidance adds incident response planning, system-disruption readiness, incident reporting to CISA, and a .gov domain pointer for government entities. CISA also asks critical infrastructure operators to practice the 3Rs: Reduce, replace, and recover.
