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CCC Joins October's National Cyber Security Awareness Campaign(Targeted News Service Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) CLARKSDALE, Miss., Oct. 13 -- Coahoma Community College issued the following news release: Coahoma Community College has joined a national campaign this month to ensure that students, faculty, staff and the community know how to keep themselves safe while online. CCC's Office of Information Technology (OIT) is joining the National Cyber Security Awareness campaign on campus in an effort to to increase online awareness and security. According to Matt Logan, chief information officer, it's CCC's first year actively joining the national campaign. "We're providing our students a safe environment to learn, but we also have the duty to protect them in cyberspace too," said Logan. "Higher education institutions are constantly under attack, and it's a huge risk to the institution and a PR nightmare. We want to be sure we're doing what we can to prevent that here." To kick off the campaign, OIT hosted a special informational session Thursday regarding cyber security. The session was led by Ellucian Information Security Officer Mike Tarcan. Tarcan provided the audience with tips and tricks to protect themselves and their workplace while working online. "One of the real major issues for higher education right now is passwords, spam and protected data," Tarcan said. According to Tarcan, passwords should not be one-worded, phone numbers, street addresses or zip codes. He also advised against storing passwords on a device and suggested, for those who share passwords across multiple sites, to use one strong password for highly confidential information and a different one for information not as important. Tarcan also cautioned those in attendance spam, which often comes in the form of a "shady" looking e-mail, he said. "If you get an e-mail that looks questionable, contact the department or company directly because what happens is when you click on the e-mail it infects your device," Tarcan said. Tarcan then brought the audience up to speed about some of the latest fraud devices like skimmers, a tiny device thieves use to swipe debit and credit cards and steal the cardholder's data. He advised those who happen to become a victim of identify theft in the future to be sure to get a police report as quickly as possible. "Just like you work hard to protect your information, there are people in the world who are working three times as hard to get that information from you," Tarcan said. Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security in cooperation with the National Cyber Security Alliance and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, National Cyber Security Awareness month is designed to engage and educate public and private sectors through events and initiatives with the goal of raising awareness about cyber security and increasing the resiliency of the nation in the event of a cyber incident. As part of CCC's campaign, Logan said OIT also plans to send "food for thought" e-mails to the campus throughout the month with tips on how to protect themselves in the cyber world. CC AutoTriage9as-141014-30FurigayJane-4897726 30FurigayJane (c) 2014 Targeted News Service |