Cybersecurity Awareness

Data Privacy Day 2020

Manage Your Privacy Settings: 1. Secure all devices, especially smartphones.

Smartphones are carried by virtually everyone and often they contain our most personal information. Whether iPhone or Android, research the best way to secure it for full privacy including options such as remote wipe.

2. Use a unique password for each site.

That way, if one of your passwords gets compromised, the others are still safe. Use complex passwords and never share them. Using multi-factor authentication (MFA) wherever possible will help protect you even more. Keep your university and personal...

Data Privacy Week Posters

Own Your Privacy

Learn how to review privacy settings for Google Calendar (bCal), Google Groups (bConnected Lists), and Google Drive (bDrive).

Click on the image(s) to download the pdfs.

Database Hardening Best Practices

This checklist was developed by IST system administrators to provide guidance for securing databases storing sensitive or protected data. Implementing these security controls will help to prevent data loss, leakage, or unauthorized access to your databases.

Physical Database Server Security The physical machine hosting a database is housed in a secured, locked and monitored environment to prevent unauthorized entry, access or theft. Application and web servers are not hosted on the same machine as the database server...

Network Printer Security Best Practices

Multifunction printers (MFPs) are experiencing an identity crisis: IT administrators don't always see them as the full-fledged networked computers they really are. But attackers do - and they are finding them increasingly very attractive!

These printers, shoved in the corner of the office and quietly going about their business of copying, printing, faxing and scanning, might not seem to pose any real security risk. But like any networked device, if not properly managed, they can expose sensitive campus data to unauthorized access and misuse.

To secure your printers from...

Data Privacy Videos

Short videos for protecting your privacy online

Too busy to read our articles? Here are three, short videos to give you some tools to help you "Own Your Privacy."

Back-to-School Cybersecurity Tips

The new school year is an exciting time for students, faculty, and staff. It's also an exciting time for hackers, identity thieves, and other unscrupulous types who take advantage of people during this busy time of year.

Watch out for typical beginning-of-the-year scams: Emails supposedly containing “important information about your UC account,” or a “problem with your registration”. Scams designed to cheat students out of money, such as scholarship scams, fake “tuition payment processors”, textbook rental or book-buying scams, housing scams, tutoring scams, and...

Up-to-date on updates: Keeping your software fresh

September 6, 2019

Software updates are sort of like exercise: Not everyone thinks about it, but everyone needs it, and they can make a big difference in keeping a system healthy. Let’s take a quick minute to talk about updates.

Updates help keep a piece of software or a system current. Because new threats are being developed all the time, manufacturers will send out fixes and updates to help protect their users from new threats — or just from problems they didn’t find when the software was first made. If you don't download and apply the update to fix the problem, you're basically leaving a door open...

No peeking! Staying safe and private on Wi-Fi

September 6, 2019

Wi-Fi is great. Think about it, you pretty much carry an entire library and a direct line to anywhere in the world in your pocket. Nowadays many businesses offer Wi-Fi for their customers, so you can stay connected even while eating udon or waiting in line for toast.

But! That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. Using public Wi-Fi is sort of like doing, well, anything else in public: you want to be safe and not accidentally wander into trouble. Let’s talk about what you can do to protect yourself on Wi-Fi.

When you’re on public Wi-Fi, never access anything private. Accessing sports...

Staying safe when shopping online

September 6, 2019

How easy is it to shop online? (Rhetorical question there.) It’s so convenient to be able to order anything you like and have it delivered right to your door. Unfortunately, that also means there’s more risk. Scammers and criminals can try to steal your information and money while you shop online.

The good news is that there are some easy things you can do to protect yourself and safely shop online. Let’s take a quick look at some tips:

Never do your shopping on public Wi-Fi networks. Seriously. Public Wi-Fi can have weak (or no) security and sending sensitive information like...

Don’t pass on strong passwords

September 6, 2019

Passwords! What a headache, am I right? Sometimes it seems like that in order to be safe, your password must contain letters, numbers, punctuation, bird noises, and at least one Egyptian hieroglyph.

But the truth is that it’s easier to create a long, strong, safe password than most people think. Let’s take a quick look at a few tips for making a password that will keep your account safe.

Use a passphrase instead of a password. Passphrases, or sentences, will always be longer than a single word (which is good, because government advice now suggests that passwords be...