The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is once again enlisting the help of security firms and software vendors for its national Cyber Security Awareness Month.

The aim of the project is to educate users on ways of avoiding cyber-attacks and what to do if their systems are compromised.

Cyber Security Awareness Month is sponsored primarily by the DHS National Cyber Security Division along with a number of security groups and software vendors.

The aim of the programme is to "educate the American public, businesses, schools and government agencies about ways to secure their part of cyber-space, computers and our nation's critical infrastructure".

Among those taking part is security firm Sans Institute. The company plans to post a series of lessons every day from 1 October to 3 November, offering tips on everything from securing networks and installing intrusion detection systems, to assembling a response team and archiving evidence against an attacker.

For less advanced users, security firm Information Shield has set up a month-long My Security IQ web site which rewards users for passing a security information quiz. The quiz is available as a web page and an embeddable widget.

Government and educational institutions are also planning special security summits and programmes in October, including the City of New York, the American National Standards Institute and the DHS.

Americans are not the only ones planning major security events for October. The RSA Conference Europe 2008 is set to take place in London from 27-29 October, while the Meridian Conference 2008 will take place in Singapore from 22-24 October.