Welcome to week three of Cybersecurity Awareness Month! I was out of the office on short notice last week and didn’t get a chance to put up a leaderboard, but I will do so as soon as I get back in the office on Tuesday.
An update on the Virtual Scavenger Hunt. We are having delivery issues sending emails to students from the forms you fill out to complete each week. We’re working on it, but it may not be fixed by the time your read this. Emails to faculty and staff should be good, but definitely check your Junk folder if you submitted a form and did not get an email. I will send any students who complete a week of the hunt the needed emails manually until we get this corrected. I’m really sorry for the issue; this is the first time this has happened since we started the scavenger hunt years ago.
This week, I’d like you to meet Cozy Bear. He’s not cute, cuddly, or cozy, but he does try to attack unpatched systems.
Cozy Bear, a cybercriminal organization backed by Russia, stays in business by constantly hunting for outdated and unpatched software. Sometimes, the hunt is simple – the moment a company releases a software update, they study it to see what vulnerabilities it fixes. Then they peek around the web for companies and people who haven’t installed it yet. In a way, they get a how-to guide for infecting your machine. Every day you click “Remind Me Later” for an update is another day Cozy Bear hopes
you’re vulnerable… and they want to make your life a lot less cozy. You can read about Cozy Bear on the Wikipedia page. I don’t normally point you to Wikipedia pages, but many of the other available pages, while written in English, may be totally incomprehensible. If you want a deeper dive, you can access links from the Wikipedia article that will satisfy even the “nerdiest” readers out there.
Don’t make life easy for Cozy Bear!
- Automatic updates are on for all managed Berry devices. You should turn on automatic updates whenever possible on your devices.
- Check regularly that operating systems, browsers, apps, and devices are updated.
- Restart devices when updates require it. For Berry-managed devices we will force reboots for machines that delay installing updates. If you don’t want that to happen, update your devices when prompted to do so.
Updates don’t just add features. They are full of (Cozy) Bear repellent. Most operating system updates take 5 minutes or less, even including restarting your device. Just do it when prompted, enjoy the little break, and don’t make it easy for them!
That’s week 3! 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. If you have any issues access the training, please let me know.
If you haven’t started the Virtual Scavenger Hunt, now is the time! Three weeks are available to complete all at once and you’d only have to wait for week four. Remember, you have multiple chances to win a prize by completing the different weeks of the hunt. Start your hunt by clicking this link! IMPORTANT: As I mentioned above, 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 one more article and one more week of the Virtual Scavenger Hunt next week. Be sure to check back here for more information.
CAM 2023 Week 4 – Update Your Software!