#CyberAware Software Updates
Keeping with one of our overarching themes for this year we’re bringing you information about updating your apps and software to help you stay safe. Continuing to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity and helping everyone “Do Your Part. #BeCyberSmart!”
You may not realize it but cyber attackers are constantly looking for and finding new vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the software people use every day. This software may run your laptop, could be the mobile apps you use on your smartphone, or perhaps even the software in your baby monitor or other devices in your home. Bad guys take advantage of these software weaknesses, allowing them to remotely break into devices around the world. At the same time, the software and device vendors are constantly developing fixes for these weaknesses and pushing fixes out as software updates. One of the best ways you can protect yourself is to ensure the technologies you use all have the latest updates, making it much harder for cyber attackers to break into them.
When a software vulnerability is discovered, a software update (also known as a patch) is developed and released by the vendor. Most software programs and devices nowadays have a mechanism to connect over the Internet to a vendor's server to obtain the software update. This update, nothing more than a small program, typically installs itself and fixes the vulnerability. Examples of software you need to update are the operating systems that run your laptop (such as Microsoft Windows or OSX) or run your smartphone (such as Android or iOS). Additionally, but often overlooked, you need to update the programs that run on your devices, such as your laptop’s web browser, word processor, messaging software, or your phone’s mobile apps (especially social media apps).
This is why, whenever you purchase a new computer program or a new mobile app, check first to be sure the software vendor is actively updating the program or device. The longer software goes without any updates, the more likely it has vulnerabilities that cybercriminals can exploit. This is why many vendors, such as Microsoft, automatically release new patches at least every single month.
Finally, if you are no longer using a certain computer program, software or mobile app, remove it from your system. The less software you have to update, the more secure you are.
Following up on our past several years of successful faculty and staff training in cybersecurity, ITS will be opening the #Cyber2022 training this week.
All employees, full and part-time, will receive an email from the University of Hartford (system@litmos.com) with the subject line “University of Hartford CyberAware2022 training." In that email will be a specific link for you to create your account and begin your training.