Looking back on NCSAM 2025: October shenanigans bring November reflections
Yet another October has come and gone, and the Information Security Office is grateful for all the support from our Miami community.
Looking back on NCSAM 2025: October shenanigans bring November reflections
Another October has come and gone, along with it a number of events designed to spread awareness of cybersecurity best practices and online safety concepts. National Cybersecurity Awareness Month is one of our favorite times of year, and Miami folks help us celebrate in a major way.
Final tally: NCSAM events reached the Miami community
As always, the Information Security Office and IT Communications posted up in various locations over three Miami campuses throughout the month of October to promote security awareness and make some noise. These antics allowed us to reach more than 120 people in person, which is a huge victory—when even one person gets more information about how to stay safe online, we celebrate!
We also invited back Helen Patton, executive cybersecurity advisor for Cisco Systems, for the second year in a row to chat with us about the intersection of cybersecurity and generative artificial intelligence. She talked about the risks of AI in the higher education cybersecurity space and offered some recommendations to folks who remain concerned about all this new technology and how it impacts the way we learn and work (which is most of us).
Check out our recap of the event—it’s worth a read.
In addition to the extra events and fun shenanigans we got up to for NCSAM, our new PhishBowl resource also got a workout. Don’t forget to check it out and bookmark it for when you think an email is just too phishy.
Final numbers: CyberMania
We put up a valiant effort, but unfortunately, Ohio University got the jump on us this year. They came into the month strong and maintained a lead all throughout October, even with our folks promoting the security survey and with all the support we received from around the Oxford, Hamilton, and Middletown campuses.
We continue to be proud of the work our students, faculty, and staff are doing to promote security awareness. Congratulations to Ohio!
We’ll get them next year!
Until next time . . .
We’ll leave you with a key reminder: Cybersecurity isn’t just for October. The Miami community is already skilled at letting us know when emails look phishy and shows up each year for our events. Keep up the good work, and do it all year long!
