Data Privacy and Security

Data Privacy and Security, March 2019

Preventing Identify Theft

The first week of March is National Consumer Protection week, which is designed to help people understand their rights as a consumer, and learn ways to prevent identity theft.

Below are some tips and tricks from EDUCAUSE about how you can help to prevent identity theft. They discuss managing your paper data, your digital data, and other things to think about.

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Identity theft has become commonplace during the past decade. If you are reading this, it is a safe bet that your data has been breached in at least one incident. Does that mean we are all helpless? Thankfully, no. There is a lot we can do to protect ourselves from identity theft and to make recovery from incidents quicker and less painful.

One of the first things that you should consider doing, when looking to protect yourself from identity theft, is to take control of your credit reports. Examine your own report at each of the “big three” bureaus. Make sure there’s nothing inaccurate in those reports, and file for corrections if needed. Also, keep an eye on your credit report all year, space out your credit bureau requests by requesting a report from a different credit bureau every four months. You can request your report free once a year from each of the three agencies.

Next, practice good digital hygiene. Just as you lock your front door when you leave home and your car when you park it, make sure your digital world is secured. Some things that you can do to help keep your digital world secure are:

  • Keep your computer and smart phone operating systems up to date. When OS updates are released, make sure you apply them. They often fix errors in the code that could let the bad guys in.
  • Do the same for any of the applications that are on your computer or smartphone. Web browsers, plug-ins, email clients, office software, antivirus/antimalware, and every other type of software has flaws. When those flaws are fixed, you are in a race to install that fix before someone uses the flaw against you. The vast majority of hacks leverage vulnerabilities that have a fix already available.
  • Be careful about what you share on social media. Some of those fun-to-share-with-your-friends quizzes and games ask questions that are similar to “security questions” that can be used to recover your account or compromise your credentials.
  • Consider using a password manager for your personal accounts and keep a strong, unique password for every site or service you use. That way a breach on one site won’t open you up to fraud at other sites. For instance, if someone gains access to your social media account, if it has a different password than your other accounts, they would not gain access to your online banking account.
  • Check all your account statements regularly. Paperless statements are convenient in the digital age. But it is easy to forget to check infrequently used accounts such as a digital bank or credit card statement. Make a recurring calendar reminder to check every account for activity that you don’t recognize.
  • Manage those old-style paper statements. Don’t just throw them in the trash or the recycle bin. Shred them with a cross-cut shredder or deposit them in a secure shredding bin on campus. Data that is stolen from a trash bin or dumpster are just as useful as data stolen from a website.

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EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit organization that provides information technology based articles to its members to increase the use and understanding of technology in higher education.

If you would like to read the tips from EDUCAUSE on its original web page, click here.

 

Data Privacy and Security, January 2019

Social Media Privacy

Happy Data Privacy Day!

Data Privacy Day is observed annually on January 28th to help bring greater awareness to privacy education. As the use of digital platforms for managing personal information, such as websites and social media, continues to grow, it is increasingly important that we understand what data we are sharing and how to protect that data. This can sometimes be a challenging task, especially since each website handles privacy and security a little bit differently. Data Privacy Day is used to help bring awareness to these growing challenges.

Maintaining your privacy on social media platforms can be complicated. Each social media site often has its own very specific settings and requirements that can make it difficult for you to really understand which portions of your data are private, and which are not.

This article, from www.experian.com, gives some insight into the realities of social media privacy and how it impacts users. It also provides specific guidelines on how to manage privacy settings on some of the most popular social sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.). It is important for users to be armed with the knowledge of where and how they have a voice with regards to their social media privacy, and this article sheds some light on that. Use the listed links on the right side of the article if you’d like to jump to a specific social media’s privacy settings instructions. Read more by clicking here…

Data Privacy and Security, January 2019

Creating Strong Passwords

Creating and maintaining passwords can sometimes be frustrating. Each website and system we use, inside and outside of Clark, can often have different requirements when it comes to building a password. This can often make you wonder what actually makes a password safe, and what tools are available to help us make sure our passwords are really secure.

As you think about securing your online identity and data (it’s what passwords do for us); be it on social media, on personal accounts, or on Clark systems, it is important for you to create strong passwords. This article, from www.connectsafely.org, gives some instructions and information around what strong passwords are in general, details about how to create a strong password, and details about what tools some websites use to help you keep your passwords and data safe. Click here to read more.

Additionally, if you would like to learn more about the Clark ITS password policy and the recommendations we have for creating a secure password on campus, they can be viewed by clicking here.