• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

ISO NEWSLETTER www.utrgv.edu/is VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1II JANUARY 19, 2017 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Happy New Year! Happy New Year! 1 The UTRGV Information Security Office (ISO) would like to wish you and your families a Security Highlights 2 happy New Year. Hopefully one of your new years resolution will involve information security at home and work, in the instance that you have not added this to your list don’t worry there is still What to expect this plenty of time. semester Data privacy The ISO would also like to share a few security tips and hopefully you will share them with day 3 friends and family. National Stalk- ing Awareness Month Some basic security reminders to help 4. Change your passwords regular- you start the year: ly: UTRGV passwords must be ISO Spotlight 1. Beware of Tax Scams! The IRS saw changed at least yearly, but you can change it more often if need- UTRGV Senior an approximate 400 percent surge in 4 ed. Follow this tip for your banking Information phishing and malware incidents in the Security Analyst 2016 tax season. (www.irs.gov/uac/ and social media accounts! tax-scams-consumer-alerts) 5. Start organizing your passwords Featured Article 5 2. System & Data Backups: Ensure you with a password manager (e.g., backup important documents, irre- www.lastpass.com) where you can ISO Guest 6 placeable pictures and videos. Do not easily remember your password and let hardware failure, malware or everything is kept secure. ISO Campaigns 8 cryptoware get your data. Cloud 6. Secure your mobile devices (like sync services like OneDrive and laptops and tablets) by not leaving Security in the News 9 Dropbox are not suitable backup them visible in your car, password solutions. protecting access to them, and by 3. Computer Health: Check monthly physically securing them when unat- for Operating System (OS) and pro- tended. gram updates. Remove any unsup- ported or unneeded programs and services. EDITOR Francisco Tamez ISO Security Analyst P A G E 2 Security highlights Black Friday and Cyber Yahoo second data Pros and cons of your Med- Monday 2016 report breach ical ID in the Health app on U.S. ecommerce revenue Based on further analysis of your iPhone reported that Black Friday data by the forensic experts, If you have the latest version of 2016 was the first day to Yahoo believes an unauthor- iOS for your iPhone then you “generate more than a bil- ized third party, in August can set up a Medical ID in the lion dollars in online sales 2013, stole data associated from mobile devices, ac- with more than one billion Health app in order to access cording to Adobe.” Similarly user accounts. important health information. Cyber Monday saw an in- Medical ID helps first respond- crease of 12.1 percent Yahoo is notifying potentially ers access you critical medical achieving a new record with affected users by email and information (e.g., medications, “$3.45 billion spent posting additional infor- medical conditions, and aller- online” (bit.ly/2iLmW4p). mation to Yahoo’s website. gies) from the Lock screen, Additionally, Yahoo is asking It is clear that this trend will potentially affected users to without needing your passcode most likely continue for the promptly change their pass- (apple.co/2jbf7I7). new year and as the sales words and adopt alternate The questions here would be event takes place it still re- means of account verifica- who really has access to your mains the possibility of tion. The UTRGV Infor- fraudulent sales and fake mation Security Office (ISO) critical medical information? advertisement. highly recommends that any And what other information is Yahoo user to promptly stored in this application? The Despite the threats online change their passwords, se- answers would be: first re- by educating ourselves, curity questions, and an- sponders, nosy coworkers, sharing tips with family, and swers. prying family members, or any- friends we can combine our one who gets physical access efforts to be safe online. In For potentially affected ac- addition the ISO will always counts, the stolen user ac- to your iPhone for 15 seconds, stand guard and share with count information may have and “in addition, the phone the public any vulnerabilities included names, email ad- numbers and names of your online and any other topics dresses, telephone numbers, emergency contacts, and their of interest to you. dates of birth, hashed pass- relationship to you, will also be words (using MD5) and, in viewable, which introduces some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security ques- identity theft or phishing con- tions and answers. cerns. You’ll therefore need to (bit.ly/utrgvisonews2YDB) weigh the risks and benefits of having this information easily accessible via your iPh- one.” (bit.ly/2j4xmNy) P A G E 3 What to expect this semester? ISA Trainings Current ISO Projects Data privacy day With the help of the academic Our office is currently work- Respecting Privacy, and departments in UTRGV the ing on several projects that Safeguarding Data and ISO has founded the Infor- will enhance asset and vul- Enabling Trust is the theme for Data Privacy mation Security Administrators nerability management for Day (DPD), an interna- (ISA) group. The ISA’s will act computers in our University. tional effort held annually as a conduit between the ISO The ISO is currently improv- on January 28 to create and to these departments and ing methods of asset discov- awareness about the im- colleges. This partnership will ery, inventory, classification portance of privacy and help build pathways of commu- of data, and data loss preven- protecting personal infor- nication to ensure both em- tion. mation. ployees and the ISO are kept DPD is the signature event informed of topics and issues Mac Encryption solution in a greater privacy aware- affecting security. ness and education effort. The currently installed ver- The National Cyber Secu- sion of SecureDoc, UTRGV’s rity Alliance (NCSA) edu- January is the National encryption management so- cates consumers on how Stalking Awareness Month lution for Mac OSX, does they can own their online (NSAM) presence. NCSA’s privacy not support the latest OSX In January 2004, the National awareness campaign is an Center for Victims of Crime version Sierra. IT is re- integral component of launched NSAM to increase searching a better solution STOP.THINK.CONNECT the public’s understanding of to manage OSX encryption .-the global online safety, the crime of stalking. NSAM and Mac endpoint manage- security and privacy cam- emerged from the work of the ment, to include both OSX paign. Stalking Resource Center, a and iOS. (www.staysafeonline.org/ National Center program fund- data-privacy-day/about) ed by the Office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Depart- Retirement of UTB and ment of Justice, to raise aware- ness about stalking and help UTPA domains develop and implement multi- The UTB and UTPA legacy disciplinary responses to the domains will be retired this crime. summer. Users with ac- counts or computers still on In 2011, the White House is- sued the first Presidential Proc- these legacy domains run the lamation on National Stalking risk of losing computer and Awareness Month. President file access. It is critical that Obama’s proclamation stressed computers be migrated to the millions affected by the the UTRGV domain as soon crime, its often-devastating as possible. Avoid a last mi- consequences, the difficulty of nute rush and submit a ser- identifying and investigating the crime, and the federal govern- vice request with the IT Ser- ment’s strong commitment to vice Desk to get migrated combating stalking. before the summer. (stalkingawarenessmonth.org) VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1II P A G E 4 ISO Spotlight The ISO Spotlight interviews an individual that plays a role in UTRGV or information security. In this issue, you will meet Senior Information Security Analyst Daniel Ramirez . Daniel Ramirez Senior Information Security Analyst The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley 1. Tell us how information security has changed since you started in your role. Security is everywhere now because the internet is in everything. As more people and more things become connected to the internet, security becomes increasingly important. A hacker, thousands of miles away, could potentially connect to an internet accessible security camera inside a building and use it to breach security and access restricted areas. This could be someone’s home or the nations electrical grid. We live in a new era know than we did just 10 years ago. 2. Who are your customers, and what is one of the most challenging areas for you? My customers are the students, faculty and staff of UTRGV. One of my most challenging areas is ensuring that each of my customers has the knowledge needed to keep both UTRGV information resources and personal information resources safe and secure. 3. How did you come into the security field? I grew up with a fascination for computers and programming, before the internet. As computers began to be connected to the internet, I was intrigued by the technologies that were required to secure computers from threats. Threats in- creased exponentially over the years as the world learned how to hack and this shifted my fascination into ethical hacking and cybersecurity. 4. Top 3 life highlights: Finding my wife Births of my kids Getting a career in Cybersecurity 5. People would be surprised to know: I like to tinker with woodworking. 6. Which CD do you have in your car? Or what radio station do you listen to? A self-made mix of over 100 rap and hip-hop songs from the 80s through the new century.

Load more

  9

Copy Link