Cybersecurity Awareness Month (CSAM) celebrates its 20th year anniversary this month. CSAM’s continuing objective is to empower a more secure globally interconnected world. There’s (always!) more work to do. As the threat landscape continues to change and evolve, technologies designed to protect us must also change and evolve, laws and regulations are passed or changed, and we are challenged with remaining cyber and privacy aware. This can feel like a big charge. Although cybersecurity and privacy require our year round mindfulness, CSAM presents us with the perfect opportunity to remember that the simple focus on a few key best practices can be tremendously beneficial to ourselves and NYU.
The three topics we’re choosing to spotlight this month are:
- Password best practices
- The importance of updating/patching
- Best practices around detecting and avoiding phishing
An interesting statistic on phishing and breaches – KnowBe4 reports that 91% of successful breaches begin with spear phishing (targeted) attacks. This is just one of many reasons why you are considered the best defense and an essential contributor to our success. To learn more about phishing and how to best detect and avoid it, please see the following updated article in The Download on Phishing, Spear Phishing and Whaling.
For other CSAM related resources, please visit NYU’s CSAM web page at NYU.edu/it/cybersmart. For more security and privacy related resources, please see NYU’s Safe Computing site.
Don’t forget to enjoy the season!
