Internet vacationing: Summer cybersecurity safety tips
Let’s take a trip to the cyber-beach and see what we’ll need to bring…
Internet vacationing: Summer cybersecurity safety tips
The summer of 2024 is flying by us, and as we gear up for the fall with the new incoming class and returning students and faculty alike, it’s the best time to start shoring up our processes and making sure we are practicing good cybersecurity hygiene.
So let’s take a trip to the cyber-beach and see what we’ll need to bring…
Don’t forget sunscreen! (Keep your passwords strong)
Just as sunscreen is the first line of defense against harmful UV rays, so too are passwords the first barrier to entry for your accounts. Using a strong password is one of the most important ways to maintain a good security posture – i.e., keep hackers out of your business!
Strong passwords should be:
- Long strings of letters, numbers, and symbols. Passphrases are great – where your password is a full sentence or sequence of words
- Unique. Pick a different password for each system and website! (Use a password manager for optimal security)
- Secret! Don’t tell anyone and don’t keep them in places that are easily discoverable (e.g., a sticky note on the back of your computer monitor)
Miami recently improved our sign-on systems and launched our new password utilities tool at accounts.MiamiOH.edu. With that upgrade, passwords are now required to be 16 characters long, with upper and lower case letters. For more information about our password requirements, see our standards list in the Knowledge Base.
Stand by with the aloe! (Set a recovery email)
What happens when you forget your sunscreen? In this unfortunate event, you may need to apply aloe to any burns. In this same vein, when you forget your password, you need a recovery email to reset your password (our system will send an email to your non-Miami address to begin the recovery process).
Recovery emails are now required for all Miami accounts. The next time you log in to do password management activities at accounts.MiamiOH.edu, you will be asked to input a recovery email if you haven’t already. This will give you the power to reset your password with self-service activities! (You can also still call or chat with IT Help for assistance with your password.)
Bring a big umbrella (We are making headway with the IAM Program)
Password management and recovery emails are only two pieces of the larger puzzle of identity and access management at Miami. IAM is very much the big umbrella that encompasses all of these other activities. The folks working behind the scenes to streamline account creation processes and integrate all of our access controls are making a lot of really great progress.
The Workday go-live was one such activity – the IAM Program worked closely with the Workday Platform teams to integrate the two systems so that RapidIdentity would be able to manage identities from data in Workday. Teams timed the launch of these tools to coincide in order to maintain continuity of identity and authentication services. In other words, we wanted the two projects to be in lockstep to maintain consistent data during the transition away from Banner!
Enjoy the rest of your summer!
As we move into the Fall 2024 season and ramp up for the students to be back on the Oxford campus, just remember to have fun and enjoy the warm weather – while also staying safe online!
Timeline: CrowdStrike Outage of July 19, 2024
As you have no doubt heard, Miami was impacted by last week’s CrowdStrike outage, and IT teams continue to work around the clock to get our systems back online. For daily updates and more information, including a timeline of communications sent by IT Services to the Miami community throughout the disruption, please visit the IT News site.
