Cybersecurity Awareness Month, October 2023
Message to Faculty and Staff
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month and Stony Brook University is a registered cybersecurity awareness month champion! You can register as an individual champion to show your support for a safe internet and join us this month in paying special attention to improving cybersecurity at Stony Brook.
Will You Take the Bait This Month?
Starting next week, faculty and staff members will receive internally crafted phishing emails, starting from easiest to identify and advancing to hardest to detect. We expect that by the time we reach the higher levels almost everyone will click, but you can prove us wrong! Can you defeat the phish? Make sure to review this important tip sheet and our Secure Computing Guide for Faculty & Staff so you will be fully prepared for how to best identify incoming phishing attempts and try to be one of the few that will not get phished by the end of October.
Help Students Avoid Financial Scams
Financial scams frequently target students and commonly use the exchange of gift cards to steal funds. Please reinforce with our students that we will never ask for payments to be made via gift cards and only send them emails from your Stony Brook email account. All tuition payments will be made directly to Student Financial Services and can be made via Solar, mailed check, or in person at their service counter.
Cybersecurity Coffee Break Topics
This month West Campus Faculty & Staff will be assigned a short but timely online module about Work From Home and Security in the Workplace. You will receive an invite in a separate email, and will be required to complete the module before the end of October along with any other previously assigned training available to you when you visit https://safecomputing.
Contact Us
As always, if you have any questions or need additional support, you can contact our department by opening a ticket at https://help.stonybrook.edu, or calling 631-632-9800.
Thanks all and stay safe.
Matt Nappi
Chief Information Security Officer
Assistant Vice President
Division of Information Technology