A new attack discovered by the University of Michigan and NASA exploits a trusted network technology to create unexpected and potentially catastrophic behavior.
This year marked the 20th year that ITS Information Assurance (IA) has invited U-M students to take an online quiz to raise awareness about IT security issues and promote security and privacy best practices during October’s National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. All U-M students on the UM-Ann Arbor (including medical students), UM-Dearborn, and UM-Flint campuses who scored 90% or… Read More »
As part of this fall’s SUMIT series of weekly events, the Education and Engagement team of ITS Information Assurance (IA) presented on how they curate knowledge, develop training, and create awareness for U-M community members to protect themselves and the U. The team of Performance Support Analysts featured “Jen and the Matts” (Jen Wilkerson, Matt Ranville, and Matt… Read More »
A new NSF-funded project led by UM-Dearborn’s Junaid Farooq could allow the military to use commercial 5G networks without fear of getting hacked. Since the very beginning of the public conversation around 5G — the latest-generation broadband cell network boasting super fast speeds — security issues have been front and center. Most notably, back in 2019, the U.S. and… Read More »
Former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves has planted more than 19,000 trees on his family farm that dates back to the early 1700s. He’s also helped reboot the banking system after a Russian cyber attack on the country he was leading at the time. “The first thing you must understand is – this was a DDOS attack, servers… Read More »
We live in a world of seemingly pervasive cyberthreats. From data breaches to ransomware disrupting business operations, to cyberattacks being a part of military operations, there are cyber incidents that make the news on an almost daily basis. The Securing the University of Michigan video explores the cyberthreats we face and the actions the university takes to protect… Read More »
Spring is here, the sun is shining, and many of us are going on a long-awaited trip for vacation. Whether you are heading on a long vacation or a quick professional trip, you will likely take along some combination of a smartphone, tablet, laptop, and other mobile devices. Follow these tips to safeguard both your own and the… Read More »
Complex scams are very real and playing out at academic institutions across the country, including U-M. There are key aspects to all of these scams that you should understand in order to protect yourselves and your data from malicious actors.
April 12 is Identity Management Day. Learn about the people who protect your data by “giv[ing] the right people access to the right things at the right time.”
Dissonance, Information and Technology Services and the Wallace House invite you to participate in a complimentary viewing of the film The Feeling of Being Watched, and accompanying post-viewing discussion. Algerian-American investigative journalist, filmmaker, and Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow Assia Boundaoui, grew up outside of Chicago, in an Arab-American neighborhood where most people believed they had been under surveillance for… Read More »
Jennifer Wilkerson is a lead performance support analyst on the Information Assurance team. She promotes IT security and privacy awareness within the U-M community and her work often involves change management. She loves being outside and walking in her neighborhood as a form of self-care. She also enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with her family and three dogs.
In early December 2021, the world was faced with yet another massive zero-day vulnerability, when news broke that Log4j was being used to perform remote code execution and provide unauthorized access to servers. This vulnerability was quickly exploited to do everything from crypto-currency mining to ransomware installation. Log4j is a piece of open-source software used by numerous vendors… Read More »
African Americans have served in the U.S. military since the revolutionary war, although the armed forces were not officially desegregated until 1948. Unfortunately, their service is all too often downplayed or not prominently known. One story that deserves highlighting is the cryptologic work done by William Coffee in the agency that would eventually become the NSA. Mr. Coffee… Read More »
U-M celebrated Privacy Day for the fifth year through a month’s worth of programming co-convened by ITS Information Assurance and the School of Information. At U-M’s 2022 Privacy Day keynote presentation, Dr. Gabriela Zanfir-Fortuna, vice President for Global Privacy at the Future of Privacy Forum, walked her audience through the key concepts of privacy and data protection and… Read More »
ITS Information Assurance kicked off Data Privacy Month with a presentation on Privacy in Higher Education by Autumm Caines, instructional designer at UM-Dearborn’s Hub for Teaching and Learning Resources. Autumm set the stage for an engaging Zoom session by using compelling examples to shine the light on inherent issues associated with algorithmic profiling and predictive technology. She introduced… Read More »
On December 7, due to an outage with AWS US-East-1, the Information and Technology Services (ITS) Server Center’s Amazon Connect call center software could not receive calls or chats, leaving callers getting only a busy signal and chatters getting no response at all. While multiple systems were impacted (including Canvas, MiVideo, and Code42 Crashplan), the Service Center turned… Read More »
The Security Privacy Interaction Lab (SPI Lab) at U-M, led by Florian Schaub, assistant professor in the School of Information and College of Engineering, is a team of researchers studying privacy and security issues in today’s digital world. As part of Privacy@Michigan — U-M’s Data Privacy Day celebration, Yixin Zou, a PhD student in the School of Information,… Read More »
Protect yourself from tricks and scams when shopping online: Use secure and up-to-date software, devices, and networks.
Not much compares to the feeling of watching someone you love open that new iPad they’ve been begging for, or the milestone of receiving their very first smartphone. Unfortunately, the excitement of new devices during the holidays can be eclipsed if those devices allow cybercrime to enter your home. Many households claim an abundance of devices, including computers,… Read More »
During the holiday season, people in the U.S. take about 15 billion trips between 50 and 500 miles away from their homes (as estimated by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics). Visiting family or taking getaways is an excellent way to celebrate a season filled with holiday cheer. Unfortunately, it is also the time when cybercrime increases, making it… Read More »