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This week focuses on the steps people can take to protect themselves from cyber criminals, both at home and at work.

Learn about:

• Ransomware
• Two Step Verification
• How to recognise a phishing email

Cyber security IS an issue at Royal Roads.  Consider the following:

• RRU rejects, on average, approximately 28,000 SPAM / Malware emails per day, with about 450 making it to our 3^rd level filters.
• In the last 24 months RRU has:
• experienced a “Ransomware” attack that encrypted business-critical files on our “O” Drive;
• dealt with TEN separate email account compromise incidents that can be traced to ONE specific incident of an employee responding to a PHISHING email.
• In the last 8 weeks 6 staff / faculty members have had their email account compromised because they responded to a PHISHING email.

The stereotype of the hacker as a disaffected teenager sitting in his parents' basement breaking into websites for the fun of it is long dead.  For the past decade or so cyber criminals have been actively engaging in a variety of illegal activities with one goal in mind: to make themselves richer.  If they have to encrypt your files with ransomware or steal your identity or scam you into letting "Microsoft Support" connect to your computer then that's what they WILL do.  It's a complex, world-wide scenario that will only continue to grow as we become more and more dependent on being connected. What can YOU do about it?  Funny you should ask.....

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This week we will provide you with some great information on how you can be more secure at you can protect yourself from cyber criminals both at home and at work.  Check back through the week as we will be posting resources all week long.

Lock Down Your Login!

Most computer users believe their accounts are secure with only usernames and passwords, yet every two seconds there is another victim of identity fraud. Your usernames and passwords are not enough to keep your accounts secure.   You have enough to worry about, so what can you do about it?  Lock Down Your Login!!

Lock Down Your Login is a cyber security awareness campaign that has its origins in the US White House.  The campaign has the support of numerous tech sector companies as well as government and law enforcement agencies. We strongly recommend that you check out their site and implement multi-factor verification wherever you can.  Here's the link: https://www.lockdownyourlogin.com/

If you want help setting up multi-factor authentication, you can also visit https://www.turnon2fa.com/  They've got a great site full of tutorials on setting up multi factor authentication on many popular internet sites.

Want to know more about cybersecurity in the workplace?  The Security Awareness team has a series of short seminars that they will present to your team in your office.  Email securityawareness@royalroads.ca for more information. 

Further Reading

Cyber Crime and Children

Sadly, child exploitation and child sexual abuse imagery (child pornography) is one of the most prevalent forms of cyber crime. We have some excellent resources in Canada for dealing with this reprehensible behaviour so if you're concerned about this issue please check out the following:

Canadian Centre for Child Protection  The Canadian Centre for Child Protection runs a number of education and outreach programs directed at youth, parents, educators and groups that work with young people.

Cybertip.ca is a program of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection and is focused on the online sexual exploitation of children. Along with a reporting mechanism they have a variety of resources for young people, parents and educators.

Compromised Account?

Concerned that your e-mail address might be part of a security breach, such as the LinkedIn, Adobe, or Dropbox breaches?  You can use this site to check if your email address is listed in published records of breaches

Have I Been Pwned (yes, that's the spelling of the link, using a bit of geek-speak!) will allow you to search the published breaches for your address, as well as set up notification if your e-mail address shows up in future breaches. Be advised that this site is not a comprehensive list of all breaches, and that some breaches aren't always publicized. We can vouch that the person running this site is a trusted security expert.

As we have mentioned elsewhere, if you suspect that your Royal Roads account might have been compromised, please contact Computer Services right away.

Cybercrime Inc:

How hacking gangs are modeling themselves on big business:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/cybercrime-inc-how-hacking-gangs-are-modeling-themselves-on-big-business/