Stay safe online! October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month

This October, the Technology Security and Risk team at McMaster is proud to once again participate in National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM). 

National Cyber Security Awareness Month is an opportunity to raise awareness about cyber security and to help foster a safer place for all online. McMaster has participated in NCSAM efforts for the past seven years and has several activities planned for the 2018 campaign.

Get involved in National Cyber Security Awareness Month activities:

This October and throughout the semester, keep an eye out for our posters around campus. You can also follow on social media where we will be sharing tips, alerting followers to spam targeting our community, advertising campus events and offering information on cyber-security.

You can also visit the Technology Security and Risk team in MUSC by Starbucks on October 3, 4, 23 and 24. Check us out to get free goodies and information!

What you can do to stay secure online:

Information Security isn’t just the job of the IT department. Many of our jobs require access to resources on the Internet, and anyone with accessing the Internet from our network is a potential point of vulnerability. Cyber criminals are becoming ever more advanced, and we must take steps to protect our data and systems from cyber threats.

As recent major cyber security incidents have shown, cyber criminals often rely on human error such as clicking on malicious links or creating weak passwords to gain access to systems and private information. Phishing has become the number one attack vector for stealing credentials and infecting systems.

Each one of us plays a critical role in helping to keep the McMaster community safe from threats and vulnerability online. This can be as easy as:

• Reporting a suspicious message
• Keeping your system updated
• Creating strong and unique passwords for your MacID. 

The Technology Security and Risk team have an inbox setup for reporting suspicious messages to. Each message is analyzed to determine it’s legitimacy and associated threat. Send messages that don’t look quite right to is-spam@mcmaster.ca

Visit the McMaster University Information Security website for important information related to online threats and to see how we are working to protect the McMaster University community: https://informationsecurity.mcmaster.ca/

Social Media

Twitter: https://twitter.com/McMaster_ITSec

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mcmaster_itsec/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mcmaster.itsec/