Author: Dan Boyd

As April arrives, we can see the end of the semester approaching rapidly, maybe too rapidly for some. I hope everyone is able to navigate these final weeks of the spring semester with success and alacrity. As always, new cybersecurity threats, mostly similar to the old ones, but with updated themes, continue to crop up. This newsletter will briefly discuss one of these threats in particular (with a bonus factoid) and give a report on how our first campus-wide cybersecurity awareness training course is proceeding. Finally, we’ll take a deeper dive into passwords, password managers, and multi-factor authentication.

March! Yay! March! The third month of the year has begun, and it will be busy, as we have reached the midpoint of the semester, and can now look forward to spring break, warmer weather, and the end of the semester. This is not to say that we don’t have plenty of challenges ahead of us.

We’ve made it through one month of 2022. That means that tax season is approaching and with it, the onslaught of phishing and scam emails about taxes, tax forms, refunds, and any other tax-related topic cyber-criminals can come up with. With tax preparation being an annual event for most people, it doesn’t hurt to get a reminder early on about what kinds of fraudulent emails, phone calls, and even text messages are possible during this time.

Instead of “being down with O.P.P.” as a jarring, offensive attitude and phrase, we’re going to say that “being down with O.P.P”, other people’s PRIVACY, is something to strive for. So how do we become “down with O.P.P.” in this new and much better sense?

This week is Data Privacy Week, created by the same folks who support Cybersecurity Awareness Month in October of each year. This used to be just a single day in January, but the topic is growing rapidly both in criticality and scope. Every time we use the Internet, whether is via social media, shopping sites, content sites, or more important things like banking online or dealing with other financial tasks, information about us is gleaned by the sites we visit and even by sites we don’t. Limiting this information gathering is what this week is all about.

Happy, happy new year! (Yes, I put “happy” in twice, on purpose, both for effect and positive emoting)

I hope everyone had a great holiday time, were able to relax as they saw fit, and are ready for the new year and a new semester. We have challenges this semester, but we’re moving forward, looking ahead, and have so much headed our way.

“Interwebs”, should be aware that data, including your email address, real name and username have been “scraped” from the site using a technique published by a security researcher. Of the 167 million accounts scraped, 114 million have had their hashed (sort of like encrypted) email address cracked and distributed within the hacking community. While no passwords for the site were captured, you must realize that this information is “out there” and could be used to attempt to manipulate you into compromising related accounts.