LVAIC Cyber Security Awareness Month Phishing for Collaborative Success

November 6, 2017, @ 8:00 AM

During the month of October, which is Cyber Security Awareness Month, the information technology staff across the LVAIC community joined forces. The group worked collaboratively by sharing several events with each other and offering open registration for informational symposia. After these events, the group gathered to discuss their event outcomes and share lessons on best practices.

“The main focus of the events this month was to shed light on cyber security awareness across LVAIC and to enhance cyber security practices by the IT staff in the LVAIC community,” explains LVAIC Strategic Partnership Director Katy Thomas who acts as the LVAIC staff liaison to the information technology directors and chief innovation officers communities of practice. “Each time these groups meet, the brain storming and sharing that happens is extremely beneficial to everyone in the room. These campuses are learning from each other and supporting each other.”

The first event in LVAIC Cyber Security Awareness Month was a Zoomcast hosted by Lehigh University entitled Protecting Your Identity: Keeping Those Digital Skeletons in the Closet. Speaker Keith Hartranft, Chief Information Security Officer at Lehigh University, spoke to the group on phishing awareness and identity protection . The next event was Business Hacking…WTF? (Wire Transfer Fraud). For this Zoomcast, Keith Hartranft spoke to finance and administration personnel who deal with purchase requests regarding safe wire transfer practices and awareness around fraudulent cases. In the mean time, DeSales University hosted a full-campus fake phishing e-mail to test the awareness on campus by click-through rates and a video awareness campaign competition. Lafayette College then hosted the group to debrief these events and share a debrief on how these events went and share updates. Lastly, Moravian College hosted a capstone event with several speakers sharing best practices on ways to eliminate security threats and react to those threats.

Overall the campaign for LVAIC Cyber Security Awareness Month was a successful venture in raising awareness regarding cyber security, but also in allowing this group to collaborate.