Welcome to week 2 of the 2026 Cybersecurity Awareness Month!
Week 2 brings us the story of Zestix. Zestix invaded more than 50 multinational companies because a few people never turned on multifactor authentication. You can read about the work Zestix did and how easy it was to break into all of these companies. And if some of the biggest companies in the world can go down, it would be very easy for Zestix for zestily hijack any of our accounts if we only protect it with a password. After swooping up stolen passwords on the Dark Web, criminals can break into many accounts that don’t enable MFA. They can also get their hands on passwords lost in data breaches and spray them all over the internet with automated software. Unfortunately, it’s easy to nab a password these days… and criminals love it when it’s all they need.
Here is where I paste the information I give you in every newsletter (does it look familiar?) –
All Berry students, faculty and staff have MFA enabled on their Berry account, and you should use it in the most secure way via the Microsoft Authenticator app on your smart phone. But don’t stop there! Use the Microsoft Authenticator as your second factor on any site that supports Google Authenticator. Turn on MFA/2FA everywhere you can. Yes, it will take you another few seconds to log in, but your data and account will be safer.
Be sure to enable MFA or 2FA (second factor authentication) on all of your accounts where you are using passwords to authenticate. If you are using passkeys, this is a less complicated and “un-phishable” method to authenticate to your accounts and where you can use it, I recommend you do so. This works particularly well for websites and services that you always access from the same device.
That’s week 2! Remember to complete your cybersecurity awareness training! The course closes at the end of October. You can access the training from this link – https://game.hoxhunt.com.
Also, be daring and go try the virtual scavenger hunt! You have multiple chances to win a prize by completing the different weeks of the hunt. Start your hunt by clicking this link! IMPORTANT: We’re having some difficulties with email delivery from the website when you submit your answers to the scavenger hunt. If you have submitted answers and NOT received an email back, please let me know and I will get you the information you need to move to the next phase in the hunt.
There’ll be another article next week as we progress through October. Be sure to check back here for more information.
CAM 2023 Week 3 – Don’t Get Hooked!
CAM 2022 Week 2 – Phishing
