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Three Tips to Help You Stand Up to Cybercriminals

Our thoughts around security are usually centered on the physical. We look both ways before crossing the street. We lock our cars. We don’t let our phones out of our sight. And we would never walk away from the ATM without our credit card. But what about the threats to our security we can’t see?

That’s exactly the difficulty with cybersecurity — they are digital threats that we often don’t think about because we don’t physically face them every day.

But the bottom line is that for all of us within the health system to be truly secure, we need to extend how we think and act to include proactive steps against cyberthreats.

You can do this by taking digital control in three steps.

  1. Establish strong passwords to protect your personal information against cybersecurity threats.

If you have trouble remembering your password, consider using passphrases — a series of random words or a sentence. The more characters your passphrase has, the stronger it is. For example, Sustain-Easily-Imprison or Time for tea at 1:23. These passphrases are strong because they are long and use a combination of capital letters and symbols.

UHealth provides guidelines and tips for applying additional layers of security including how to create a secure password, using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), being cyber secure at work and more. For more information about MFA, click here.

  1. Connect with confidence when working outside the medical campus or satellite location by utilizing the approved Remote Success Tools available to all UM employees.

When working remote, use Pulse, the University of Miami’s virtual private network (VPN), to make secure connections and protect your online activities and privacy. This reduces the potential security risk to your and the University’s sensitive information.

You should also use Box, which gives you access to your files quickly via the cloud from any of your devices: desktop computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc. To learn more, click here.

  1. Protect your personal and patient information on social media.

Navigate the complexities of the social media landscape by reviewing the information provided on the Office of Privacy & Data Security website. This will provide guidelines and ensure you can continue to connect socially while keeping your own information and that of our patients secure.

It is important to always remember that policies apply to online activity during both working and non-working hours, whether using a University or personal account at work, home or elsewhere.


Tags: cybersecurity