Cyber Security Awareness Month
<p> </p> <div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; "> This month is National Cyber-Security Awareness Month. The Commonwealth of Virginia and the Information Security Office at Old Dominion University take advantage of this month to raise awareness of this critical component of our online endeavors. You may see some banners and posters around ODU in the coming days and weeks.</div> <div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; "> </div> <div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; "> Last year we emphasized maintaining <b><i>strong password management practices</i></b> and protecting against <b><i>phishing attacks</i></b>. This year we are emphasizing <b><i>patching</i></b> and <b><i>virus scan</i></b> practices. According to recent Verizon reports, 90% of the vulnerabilities that are used to gain unauthorized access are from security flaws in which there is a patch available, and 97% of compromises are avoidable through simple or intermediate protective measures. Personal practices of patching and virus scanning are important components in our efforts to reduce the options for malicious actors. Your personal privacy and internet security are important, and so is the privacy and information security of all our students and fellow employees at ODU.</div> <div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; "> </div> <div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; "> This month the OCCS Technical Support Center will team up with the Student Government Association to set up tables in order to help students get virus-scanning set up on their personal devices from our site-licensed McAfee solution. This is available for home use for ODU employees as well. This is available for download at<font color="#1F497D"> </font><a href="http://occs.odu.edu/hardwaresoftware/downloads/"><font color="blue"><u>http://occs.odu.edu/hardwaresoftware/downloads/</u></font></a><font color="#1F497D"> . </font>Through a variety of means we will be encouraging people this month to do these things – to set up virus scanning with automatic updates, and to set up automatic operating system and application updates on personal devices.</div> <div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; "> </div> <div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; "> Information security at ODU is everyone’s responsibility. I solicit your help in spreading the word and in helping our user community to do the things that will help maintain their personal privacy and the privacy of all who store their information on our systems.</div> <div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; "> </div> <div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; "> Doug Streit, CISSP</div> <div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; "> ODU Information Security Officer</div>
Posted By: John Streit
Date: Sat Oct 13 09:22:16 EDT 2012