National Cybersecurity Awareness Month
posted by Jacqueline Leibman | October 24, 2022 | In NewsOctober is officially National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Beginning October 3, students and faculty began to receive emails from FSU News on behalf of Charlie Mewshaw, Fayetteville State University’s Chief Information Security Officer. These weekly emails highlighted important topics on how to protect yourself from cyber threats.
The first week’s topic was phishing, which is the term for “fraudulent e-mails or Canvas messages that attackers use to exploit our campus community by harvesting passwords, installing malware, or deceiving people into giving them money through impersonation.”
During the September 21, Board of Trustees meeting, Mr. Mewshaw gave a presentation outlining the Cybersecurity Office’s plan for campus outreach and awareness. One of the plans was to launch a simulated phishing campaign.
If you remember opening a strange email at the beginning of the semester from “Fayetteville IT Support” asking you to “Please click here to verify your Fayetteville e-mail account…,” that was part of the department’s tactic to educate campus on the risk of email phishing attacks.
You probably also received a follow-up email from the Security and Compliance Team asking you to complete an online three-minute training course on how to identify and mitigate mass market phishing.
From the beginning of the campaign to the first week of October, FSU saw a “35% reduction in people clicking on links, and a 70% reduction in people entering credentials.” Always be wary of email addresses that do not end with @uncfsu.edu and when in doubt, you can highlight a message and select “report message.” This will send the message to ITS for further investigation.
Week Two’s topic was on managing your personal computer. Tips included making sure you have a firewall enabled—to protect against attacks via the internet from outside sources—having anti-virus/anti-malware software, making sure your computer receives regular updates, and protecting your devices and accounts with passwords.
Last Monday, campus received a third email emphasizing the importance of password selection. Remember to use strong passwords that are 7-11 characters long. According to the email, it can take up to 6 hours to crack an 8-character password if you follow the standard password instructions “to use a capital letter, lower case letter, number, and character.” Try not to reuse passwords or create accounts “unless it’s absolutely necessary” and do not let your browser store passwords if you share a device with other people.
As outlined in the campus outreach plan, last week ITS hosted a cybersecurity townhall meeting along with a webinar that gave more techniques on how to protect your data.
If you have any problems navigating the various university services from Outlook to Canvas whether at home or in your dorm, you can contact ITS-Service Desk via 910-672-HELP or visit the ITS Resources website.
Cybersecurity courtesy of Richard Patterson
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