Andy Weisskopf joined the MSU community in June as chief information security officer. He brings over 30 years of experience in information security, primarily within higher education. Andy has served on various cybersecurity committees with EDUCAUSE, the Higher Education Information Security Council, NYSERNet, and SUNY. He holds a Master of Business Administration from Temple University and a Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Purdue University.
My career in information security has instilled in me a crucial understanding: security is not just a task for a few but a responsibility for all. To ensure the security of our university, every Spartan must be vigilant and proactive in maintaining security.
As humans remain the primary targets of cyber-attacks on campus, we are witnessing a significant increase in the frequency and sophistication of these attacks. In response, I am thrilled to announce the launch of comprehensive cybersecurity training for all Spartans. By educating our university community, we can significantly bolster our defense against cyber threats.
The new training course will be launched in phases for faculty, staff, and students, throughout the coming year and ensures all Spartans have a baseline knowledge of potential cyber threats.
To further our effort to educate Spartans on cybersecurity practices, I am also excited to introduce a new member to our community. Cyber Goose recently landed on the banks of the Red Cedar to remind each of us of simple, but important, ways to protect our individual data and to keep us secure online.
Cyber Goose’s tips to stay safe:
- Avoid phishing scams: Be vigilant about scammers’ tricks in emails, texts, and calls aimed at stealing your personal information.Watch out for false urgency, odd requests, poor grammar, and typos.Verify each link before clicking and confirm the validity of email addresses and phone numbers, as scammers often spoof legitimate entities.When in doubt, take the time to verify through a known communication path.
- Create strong passphrases: Use unique passphrases, such as short sentences or a series of words.Never share your logins or Spartan Card.Set up and use multifactor authentication.
- Secure your data: Regularly update your operating systems, antivirus software, and apps to stay protected against evolving cyber threats.Manage access permissions appropriately to keep your data private.Perform regular (or automatic) data backups to ensure you don’t lose anything valuable.
After getting to know the campus in my first few months, I have already seen the many strengths we have in place. We have very good technical tools with our firewalls, anti-malware, email filtering and single sign on with multi-factor authentication. We have vital programs to meet our regulatory requirements regarding data management.
We have a tremendous opportunity to enhance university policy on information security. Policy serves as a common baseline for security efforts and can help align resources and activities with best practices.
We work in an environment that is increasingly complex, that is being increasingly regulated and is facing an increasing level of threat. We are one team at Michigan State University, and I look forward to our collective journey to be Spartans of security.
For more information about cybersecurity, visit secureit.msu.edu.
