This year Oklahoma City University will participate in National Cybersecurity Awareness Month.
Cybersecurity Awareness Month lasts all of October. It is a national event, which will be run on OCU’s campus by Campus Technology.
“Like any corporation or environment, there are pros and cons to being connected to the internet,” said Lisa Shelden, director of IT infrastructure. “There’s always bad people that are wanting to get to our stuff, and so I was hoping that with a connection into Cybersecurity Awareness Month, that I could help not only the staff and faculty, but students, be more aware.”
Many students have encountered hacker tactics already this semester. Taha Khan, theater and performance senior, said he thinks it’s good OCU is practicing Cybersecurity Awareness Month.
“Considering all the spam emails I’ve been getting recently,” Khan said. “If you don’t know how to protect yourself, someone’s going to steal your identity.”
Shelden said she noticed a lack of awareness in respect to cybersecurity when she began working here in July. She also mentioned a recent hacking of the University of Illinois and a subsequent ransoming of student and staff information. She said she wants to prevent situations like that here.
“We hear about it all the time,” Shelden said. “Equifax, one of the biggest credit bureaus in the country, was breached, and how do I protect myself? How do I protect my own information?”
Campus Tech held events for staff over fall break and also had a guest speaker from Alias Forensics, a cybersecurity and cybersecurity-adjacent company, speak to the campus community. They are currently sending out weekly newsletters on cybersecurity, and they will have a speaker from the FBI’s cybercrime unit on October 23, in room 151 of Walker Center.
“We go through life, a lot of times, not always thinking of the best practice of something,” said Network Engineer Chris Craig.
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