Judith MacFadyen 
October is Cyber Security Awareness Month. Now in its 21st year, Cyber Security Awareness Month is an international initiative to raise awareness about how to stay safe online.
This year’s programme is designed to help you protect against cyber threats.
Ways to stay safe online
We all have a responsibility for the safety of your own and the University’s data. Working together to defend against cyber threats and focusing on everyday good online behaviour is the biggest defence we have against criminals.
Use strong passwords
If you use a common, easily guessed password across multiple accounts, the likelihood is that your details are already available to hackers.
How to choose a strong password: Our World Password Day article contains information about how to choose and keep safe a strong password.
Turn on MultiFactor Authentication (MFA)
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is an additional way of checking that it is really you when you log in to your account. This uses a second layer of authentication to prevent anyone but you from accessing your account, even if they know your password.
Recognise and report phishing
Phishing has become more sophisticated so it is important you remain viligant. Social engineering, where someone emails you pretending to be a colleague or friend, is on the rise and can be hard to spot.
How to recognise phishing: There are no hard and fast rules here. Not all malicious emails contain spelling mistakes (and many genuine ones do!). Treat every email as if it is a phishing attempt and run through our checklist before doing anything, particularly giving out information.
How to report phishing: If you have received an email you are suspicious of, you can report it to DTS. You can also report phishing emails within Outlook or Gmail.
Update software
Keeping software up to date ensures that any vulnerabilities are fixed as soon as possible.
It is a fact that software applications have vulnerabilities and once discovered, these are shared rapidly online. If the software is not fixed (patched or updated) promptly criminals can take advantage of known vulnerabilities in order to steal or disrupt.
Windows updates: These are regularly pushed to UoR managed devices, please don’t ignore them. The majority of updates contain important security patches.
Curriculum software: We use a software delivery system called Apps Anywhere which is the preferred way to access curriculum software. One of the advantages of this from a cyber security perspective is that we are able to keep the software we use up to date, and rapidly deploy a fix for vulnerabilities as soon as it is released by the software developer.
Important: Please do not install any software you are not sure about. By using the authorised software delivery services, you will get an up to date, supported version of the software you need.
Further information and contact
We have a Cyber Security section on the DTS website, which also includes information about spotting phishing attempts.
For more general information about keeping yourself safe online, have a look at the National Cyber Security Centre website.
If you have any questions or need any advice, please contact the IT Service Desk.