Tag: Phishing

By the time you read this, Easter will have passed and April will be in its second week! I hope your Easter weekend was great, however you decided to spend it. We are now in the home stretch for the spring semester. Before we change months again, classes will be over, finals will be happening and we will all be preparing for the summer break. It will be here before we know it. In this last month of the spring semester, I want to bring back to mind some topics we have touched on over the academic year.

The new year is hurtling along and February is upon us. We’ve rolled out Cybersecurity Awareness Training for the semester and I want to take this moment to thank the more than 150 users who have completed the training already. I designed it to be fast, widely applicable, and easy to complete. I hope you find it so. While I didn’t put a lot of content about phishing in the training course, I will take this opportunity to update everyone about the current state of phishing now that we have had generative AI around for years now.

Welcome to 2026! I hope your holidays were restful and enjoyable. Mine were very good, but of course, not long enough. The world kept on spinning while we took some time to relax and prepare for a brand new year. I gave you a month off from the newsletter in December, so I have plenty to catch you up on this month

We have one final topic this last week of Cybersecurity Awareness Month. We’re talking about spotting phishing emails and scams and how to report them. After I explain the process to report phishing emails and where to report other types of scams, Gabby, my student worker has a “Halloween-ized” section on how to spot those “scary” phishing emails and also explains spear phishing.

October is here! The weather is changing, classes are almost half-completed, Mountain Day is coming fast, and it is Cybersecurity Awareness Month! It’s that time of year to take a few minutes to examine our behaviors and awareness level, complete some training, go on a digital scavenger hunt, and maybe win some prizes! In addition to three more articles covering cybersecurity awareness topics this month, there is yet another scavenger hunt, open to students, faculty, and staff, where you will dive into topics related or adjacent to cybersecurity, solve the clues, and maybe end up with a Sony Bluetooth speaker or some other cool gizmo.

We’re fully underway for the Fall 2025 semester. Classes are in full swing, sports are active, and dangerous emails continue to fill our Inboxes. All of the usual cybersecurity threats are still out there, only now they are augmented by generative artificial intelligence (genAI). Of all things to improve the ability of cyber-attackers to be more successful, genAI has moved the needle the most. Now, instead of simple emails claiming you owe money for a Geek Squad subscription, you might receive an entire email thread generated solely to convince you to hand over your money or account credentials.

Welcome to a brand new year here at Berry College! I know everyone has a lot on their plates right now, so this newsletter will be to the point, but I have a lot of things to share with you. Speaking of things to share, this newsletter is a monthly production of the Office of Information Security, which is part of the Office of Information Technology (OIT)