Nationwide, many taxpayers have attempted to file their federal and state income tax returns, only to find out that criminals have already filed fraudulent returns and claimed refunds. The Vermont Department of Taxes explains: Refund fraud occurs when a criminal uses stolen identification of a taxpayer, including Social Security Number, to create a phony return. Often the criminal …
Continue reading “Income Tax Fraud: How to Protect Yourself”
IT Colleagues, If you find yourself challenged to help those whose IT needs you support understand the importance of strong passwords, how to choose one, or why to use unique passwords, this month’s OUCH! newsletter may be useful. You can download it from securingthehuman.org [1]. The newsletter also covers two-step verification or multi-factor authentication (MFA) …
Continue reading “Passphrases and multifactor authentication”
IT Colleagues, Protecting the huge variety of information the University collects and manages is everyone’s responsibility. For those of us with IT roles, people whose IT needs we support look to us to provide safe and secure ways to manage information. The need is particularly critical when it comes to protecting personal and private information …
Continue reading “The time for Encryption and Workstation Management is Now”
You’ve probably had your UVM Net-ID locked because someone stole your password and started doing horrible things using your account, like sending spam or launching Internet attacks. Enterprise Technology Services Account Services can get your account unlocked (call them at 656-2006) — but there are some critical steps you should take right away to protect …
Where would UVM be without student employees? University departments hire students and other temporary employees for a wide variety of important jobs, and some of those jobs involve working with sensitive or confidential information. As is true for regular faculty and staff, any work with Protected University Information (definitions of which are in the Information Security …
Continue reading “Student Employees, their Laptops, and UVM Information”
One’s UVM password must never be shared with anyone — not even with trusted family members, the boss, or information technology personnel. Our passwords protect our personal information and assets, and because we’re each responsible for all use of our accounts, keeping the passwords secret protects us from any liability for others’ actions. Please report …
Encryption protects the people whose information we collect and manage, while protecting UVM from significant liability. Encryption encodes information in a way that only someone knowing a secret key can read it. If you store sensitive or confidential information — what UVM calls “Protected University Information”[1] — anywhere but on password-protected UVM servers, it must …
Continue reading “What is encryption, and why should I care?”
Passwords serve to protect our privacy, our financial well-being, our reputations and even our identities. Often, a password is all that stands between us and catastrophe. Choosing a password: A good password is easy to remember, hard to guess or crack, and for UVM accounts, changed at least once a year (every 120 days for …
Continue reading “Please don’t make me change my password. It’s the one I use everywhere.”
UVM provides secure and reliable network storage for academic work, research, and business files. Saving confidential or sensitive information on desktop or laptop hard drives, or on tablets and phones, greatly increases the risks of loss and inappropriate disclosure. And information classified as critical or nonpublic (what the Information Security Policy calls “Protected University Information”) …
Continue reading “I have some sensitive data. Where should I keep it?”