DoIT focuses on cyber security
This month marks the sixth MU Security Awareness Month and the seventh National Cyber Security Awareness Month.
Published Oct. 19, 2010
The Division of Information Technology is hosting the sixth annual MU Security Awareness Month this October, along with the seventh annual National Cyber Security Awareness Month.
Security Awareness Month consists of a series of workshops and presentations. This year, the topics focus on identity theft, phishing and social networking.
“We are doing a couple presentations on securing the users at home this year, since a lot of people are working from home or bringing their computers from home to campus,” DoIT System Security Analyst Kristina White said.
She said the main goal of Security Awareness Month is to inform everyone they are the key to security.
“It is up to you, all the way down to the end users, to make sure what you are doing keeps not only your information secure, but even the university network secure,” White said at the presentation.
Missouri Research and Education Network’s network security analyst Beth Young gave a presentation about what end users need to be doing to secure their own machine and information, at the “Securing the Users,” workshop Thursday in Memorial Union.
Young said MOREnet is an independent unit from the university, focusing more on K-12 schools, state libraries, state government and higher education. According to MOREnet's website, it provides institutions with Internet connectivity, access to Internet2, technical support, videoconferencing services and training.
“You all are the biggest security risk by clicking a link, but we hope you can also be the greatest asset,” Young said.
Young mentioned a number of ways to spot phishing activity, such as e-mails that have misspellings or poor grammar. She then suggested for end users to avoid phishing scams by typing in URLs into address bars, rather than clicking on them directly in an e-mail and not to always trust the “From” address.
“In general, to remind everybody, it all starts with your security passwords,” White said. “It’s the easiest thing you can do to keep your information secure.”
In the workshop, Young discussed the importance of a safe password.
“Instead of a password, we should use the word ‘passphrase,’” Young said. “The longer it is, the safer you are.”
Similar to a password, a passphrase is a longer sequence of words that includes various characters for added security. Young reminded everyone not to type their password into a website that is not https secured.
“Be cautious about sharing Internet passwords,” she said. “We know students share usernames and passwords, and we want to try to get them to change the behavior.”
She also reminded people to be cautious of clicking on links, especially those that come through social networking websites, because many viruses spread through those websites.
“There is always room for improvement,” White said. “Educating everybody, keeping that in the forefront of the mind, is really just what we are trying to do.”