In observance of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the university’s Information and Technology Services team is offering a series of tips and courses to help students, faculty and staff strengthen their online protections.
The 10- to 12-minute courses, which are being offered in observance of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month in October, are available through the Bridge Learning Platform. Nebraska Today is also featuring the tips every Monday through Oct. 28.
The first focus is on using strong passwords to protect accounts. Topics in coming weeks include the importance of software updates, multifactor authentication and reporting phishing attempts.
Password tips
When setting online passwords, there are three areas on which to focus to strengthen your account protections — Make them long, random and unique.
For most people, generating and remembering long, random and unique passwords for every account is not possible. A key to success is using a password manager.
A password manager is an easy-to-use program that generates, stores and even fills in all password requests. Password managers issue alerts in the event of a weak or re-used password and can generate new options. They can also automatically fill logins to access sites and apps.
Using a manager allows for users to need to remember a single, strong password — the one for the password manager itself. Ultimately, use of a password manager makes it much more difficult for someone to access valuable information.
Founded in 2004, National Cyber Security Awareness Month is held each October to promote related best practices. The 2024 theme is “Secure Our World.”
Learn more about support available from the university’s Information Technology Services team.
