Cyber Security villains foiled again -- contest winners announced!

Contributed by Emily Riggs '11, ITAP Communication Consultant

October is National Cyber Security Awareness month. In past years, DePauw University chose to spend the last week in October to educate students and faculty about cyber security. This year, the Student Technology Support team at DePauw decided to start the fun a little earlier and offered many opportunities and activities to raise awareness of the issues throughout the month. Cyber Security Awareness Month is a great opportunity to educate students, faculty and staff on many topics related to cyber security, including virus scanning, protection of digital data, prevention of stolen identities through the internet, and education about simple computer maintenance. The increase in awareness and education of these issues is not only of great benefit to individuals; it also helps create a safer technological environment for everyone on campus.

Throughout the month of October, the Student Technology Support team introduced four Cyber Security villains to the DePauw Community. Students, faculty and staff were invited to aid our local superheros, The CyberCats, in bringing these villains to justice and restoring technological peace back to campus. Radio PSAs, posters and emails announced the villains’ pictures and the crimes they committed, along with links to websites, each with a short quiz on a particular cyber security issue. Answering the questions correctly not only helped stop the cyber villains, it registered participants in a drawing for their choice of an Amazon or iTunes giftcard. In addition, a video contest was offered inviting students to submit 30-second  videos to be used later as public service announcements, with a Panasonic USB digital video camcorder prize as incentive.

Cyber Security Awareness month provides an annual reminder of the need to engage year-round in safe practices to protect ourselves and the campus community from constantly changing technology threats. Building this foundation of knowledge helps reduce the load on DePauw's technology support resources, which in turn allows them to serve the DePauw community more efficiently. It also creates a safer environment for students and the university community, as well as protect important documents and the information that is stored on any given computer. For more information on Cyber Security issues and to learn what you can do to help prevent them, refer to the healthy computing section on DePauw University’s HelpDesk website.

[caption id="attachment_507" align="alignleft" width="106" caption="Mara Mote '11"][/caption]

And, the winners are...

Mara Mote, a junior in ITAP, won the CSAW Video Contest's Judges Choice Award with her 30-second public service announcement on identity theft.  View Mara's winning entry, as well as the other PSA contest entries on phishing, viruses and data backup here.  The online quiz winners - determined by a random drawing of all participants who'd answered the questions correctly - won their choice of an Amazon or iTunes giftcard. The winners are Zakary Phillips '11 (Identity Theft), Stephanie Wood '11 (Viruses), Kevin Bunge '10 (Laptop Theft), and Amber Goode '03 (Data Backup). Congratulations and thanks to all participants for helping us promote awareness of cyber security issues this year!