News

We want to alert students to be aware of emails they may receive about internship or employment opportunities. Phishing scams are on the rise and may come in via email, text, and phone calls. Your best line of defense is to not click on links within an email that you are at all suspicious of and never fill out any forms that you receive via email that ask for personal or financial information. Here are a few more tips to keep your information safe:

Overview

Cybersecurity is a key issue for us in our private lives — think identity theft — and on the national scale — such as in federal elections. For scientists in academic and commercial labs, threats include Intellectual Property (IP) theft, ransomware, and hacktivism.

Where are we most vulnerable to those who want to disrupt or steal from us?

How can we do the best possible job of protecting ourselves and the organizations we serve?

June is Internet Safety Month and now’s the right time to consider how you are securing your family’s safety online. We often think of safety in terms of physical and emotional safety but in the digital age, we also need to focus on what keeps our families – namely our children – safe at any age. The following helpful strategies are some of the ways you can ensure life online allows them to take full advantage of the internet, while minimizing the risk and impact on their growth.

April 12th is Identity Management Day, a day focused on learning about the impacts of casually, or improperly, managing and securing your digital identity. At Berkeley we manage our identity through our CalNet IDs, Student IDs, UCPath IDs, etc., so making sure your information is correct is super important.

The UC Berkeley Information Security Office is responding to a newly revealed severe software vulnerability in Apache's Java Logging library, Log4J.

Watch out for financial "spear phishing" emails.

These may look like they come from a supervisor or manager and request that you send funds, transfer money, provide banking information, buy gift cards, or provide something of value to the sender. 

Why Claim Your Subnets?

Because then you will get those fun and cheerful security notices! Yay!

Seriously, ISO monitors all campus IP address space.  When we find a problem we notify the Security Contact that claims the subnet so they can fix the problem.  If we cannot contact anyone, and the problem is serious, we will block the IP Address.  Now you have to troubleshoot a connectivity issue without knowing the underlying reason and you still have a serious security issue.  

UC has learned that names, Social Security numbers, and other personal information of some members of the UC community may have been used in attempts to open unauthorized bank accounts at financial institutions such as Chime and Go2Bank. Some of these UC community members are receiving emails from these institutions asking them to confirm a new account by clicking on a link in the email. It is unclear how personal information was obtained to open unauthorized accounts.

Are you on the lookout for flexible, part-time employment to help cover school expenses? If so, watch out for scams.

Between the COVID-19 pandemic and high unemployment rates, the pressure to find a job may create more pressure for you to find work quickly. UC Berkeley has received numerous reports of employment scams where the sender impersonates Berkeley professors, researchers, and/or university departments. Some scams are easy to spot but how do you know who to trust?