Information Security

Mission Statement

The Information Security Office is committed to lowering the risk profile of the University’s electronic information by implementing industry best practices to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of student, faculty, and staff information. We uphold the University’s compliance obligations by developing information security policies, providing security awareness training, and overseeing the implementation of strategic information security initiatives.

Scam of the Week

Don't Reward These Scammers

In this week’s scam, cybercriminals are targeting Verizon customers. Verizon is a cellular service provider that recently experienced a major network outage. You receive a text message that appears to be from Verizon, claiming you have expired reward points to redeem. The text includes a link and urges you to select it immediately to claim your points. You may think this message is related to the recent network outage and be tempted to follow the instructions.

However, this is actually a smishing, or text phishing, scam! Cybercriminals are exploiting the recent news stories about a mobile outage to trick you. If you select the link in the message, you will be taken to a fake website and asked to enter your financial information to redeem your reward. But if you enter your banking details, the scammers will steal them!

Follow these tips to avoid falling victim to a smishing scam:

Never select links in unexpected texts, even if the message appears to be from an official source, such as your mobile carrier.
If you want to check whether you really have an account credit or reward, open the official Verizon app on your phone or log in to their official website.
Be very suspicious if a website asks for your credit card number or bank details to issue you a credit or reward.

Time It Takes a Hacker to Brute Force Your Password in 2023

Number of Characters	Number Only	Lowercase Letters	Upper and Lower Case Letters	Numbers, Upper and Lowercase Letters	Numbers, Upper and Lowercase Letters, Symbols
4	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly
5	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly
6	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly
7	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly
8	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly	1 sec
9	Instantly	Instantly	4 secs	21 secs	1 min
10	Instantly	Instantly	4 mins	22 mins	1 hour
11	Instantly	6 secs	3 hours	22 hours	4 days
12	Instantly	2 mins	7 days	2 months	8 months
13	Instantly	1 hour	12 months	10 years	47 years
14	Instantly	1 day	52 years	608 years	3k years
15	2 secs	4 weeks	2k years	37k years	232k years
16	15 secs	2 years	140k years	2m years	16m years
17	3 mins	56 years	7m years	144m years	1bn years
18	26 mins	1k years	378m years	8bn years	79bn years