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Cybersecurity Month: Tips for a personal security audit

Campus Updates
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In honor of Cybersecurity Month, University Technology ([U]Tech) is sharing tips, links, articles and more throughout October to help keep you cyber-secure.

Each week, [U]Tech will focus on a different topic, with this week centering on personal security audits.

Equifax, Target and Yahoo are just three of the more prominent names to have made headlines for cyberattacks that put the confidential information of billions of people worldwide at risk. Keep yourself cybersafe with a personal security audit.

Google Security Checkup

CWRU email accounts are part of Google Apps for Education (also called GSuite).
To do a Google Apps security audit:

  1. Log in to CWRU via login.case.edu.
  2. Go to security.google.com; under “Security Checkup,” click “Get Started.”
  3. Click “Skip” in the “Add Recovery Information” section.
  4. Sections will appear for checking recent security events and connected devices and/or connected apps.
  5. Review the info for events, devices and apps that appear, and click “Something Looks Wrong” if you don’t recognize them.
    • Under “Check Your Connected Devices” you may see your smart phone, tablet or laptop computer. If you logged in from a classroom or the library, those devices should show up in the list, but are not the current device. Be wary of log-ins from locations where you have not been–they may indicate a compromised account.
    • Your setting for “Allow Less Secure Apps” should be “Off.”
    • In the “Check Your Account Preferences” section, remove any apps that you no longer use.
  6. If you click “Something Looks Wrong,” you’ll be prompted to change your password; please change it from CWRU Single Sign-On instead of inside Google Apps.
  7. Repeat these procedures on a regular basis.

More is better

Take even more steps to be secure in this attack-prone environment.

  • Authorize a credit freeze or activate a credit monitoring service.
  • Be aware and vigilant in checking your own financial accounts.
  • Educate yourself about social engineering and phishing attacks.
  • Review your passwords; change them if they are easy to guess or repeated.
  • Visit the Federal Trade Commission’s identitytheft.gov site for information on ID theft.