This week is Cyber Scotland Week, a weeklong festival of events on cyber awareness, cyber careers and innovation in cyber security and the University will be doing our part to promote staying safe online.

The Information Security team within Information Services are tasked with keeping your data and our IT infrastructure safe from those who seek to do us harm. As part of Cyber Scotland Week we have posted some tips about staying safe online on the @UofGlasgow Instagram account and we’d like to encourage you all to take a moment to consider how you interact with the digital world and if there’s anything you could be doing to improve your own online security and privacy.

Staying Safe Online

On the digital signage around campus we’ll be playing a game of Password Bingo, allowing you to see what some of the most commonly used and easily guessable look like – if you spot yours be sure to change it! The UK National Cyber Security Centre have posted some good advice on how to create a strong and memorable password.

This year we’ll be introducing Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) to accounts across the University, but in the meantime we encourage you to enable MFA on your personal accounts as this is one of the most basic steps you can take to secure your digital self.

MFA is the use of multiple pieces of information (factors) to secure access to an account, these are generally defined as something you have (such as a phone), something you know (such as a password) and something you are (such as your fingerprint). Most will be familiar with withdrawing cash from an ATM with your bank card (something you have) and then entering your PIN (something you know), this is a form of MFA known as Two Factor Authentication (2FA).

Last week our friends at UofG-Living marked Safer Internet Day by asking the question Are you being safe online? Which is a great question we should all be asking ourselves as a mistake online can have real world consequences. We’ve provided some resources to help keep you safe including links to guides on how to review and adjust your privacy settings on social media sites.

Cyber Essentials Plus Accreditation for SSD10

The University has been awarded the government-backed Cyber Essentials Plus (CE+) certification for Standard Staff Desktop 10 (SSD 10). If you’re using a SSD10 desktop PC or laptop, you can specify on grant applications that you’re covered by CE+ certification.

Get in touch!

We acknowledge our work in information security will never be done, but with your help we can make the Internet and our systems a safer place. If you’ve not already done so we encourage you to take our online information security course. Its mandatory for staff.

If you have any suggestions about what we could be doing better or want to get in touch with us in confidence you can contact us via email or if you need assistance please get in touch via the IT Helpdesk.

First published: 17 February 2020

<< 19 February 2020