How can Bruins enhance campus network and personal cybersecurity amidst rising cyber threats?
Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology Services and Chief Information Officer Lucy Avetisyan responds.
In today's digital age, there is a growing threat of cyberattacks that makes it more important than ever to have a strong defense strategy. Everyone at UCLA has a part to play in keeping safe from cyberattacks, both at work and at home.
October marked Cybersecurity Month, a time for us to refresh what we may have already learned and to gain new knowledge and insight that we can use all year round. As part of this, we created a website to help you better understand the vulnerability of devices and your information online; secure your digital home and office to connect with confidence; help those around you protect their data; and detect potential cyber threats and protect yourself and UCLA. This page also links to a variety of resources spanning a wide range of topics, including how to avoid phishing and ransomware scams, protect your devices and report an incident or suspected incident.
One of the main ways to defend against cyber threats is authentication. This is similar to proving who you are in the digital world. Using strict rules, such as Multi-factor Authentication (MFA), adds an extra layer of protection by making it harder for unauthorized people to access systems. It is also important to have strong password protection, so be sure to change them regularly, make them complex and not use the same password for multiple accounts. This makes it much more difficult for cybercriminals to break in.
The cyber landscape is always changing, so our defenses must change, too. We need to regularly update our software and check for weaknesses or vulnerabilities. Keeping our data safe is a big part of our defense. This means regularly backing it up, having a plan for what to do if something goes wrong and encrypting information, both on our devices and in the cloud. Every device that's connected to the internet can be a way for threats to get in, so we need to make sure they have good security software. We also need strong security for physical assets like server rooms and personal devices.
Being ready for security breaches means having a plan for what to do if something goes wrong. This plan helps us respond quickly and effectively to incidents, reducing the damage and helping us recover faster. Working with other people and organizations, like cybersecurity experts and law enforcement agencies, is also important. By sharing information and working together, we can rapidly identify and respond to threats and create a strong digital defense for ourselves and UCLA.
