Data Breaches are Real

Your campus merchants are ripe targets of opportunity for hackers and phishers.

If you haven't seen this article in the Wall Street Journal online, I recommend you read it. It is about a small business that downloaded some malware (very easy to do; very tough to eliminate once you do), and as a result they suffered a major data breach. Well, maybe not "major" in the sense of making the headlines, but it nearly put one small business out of business.

The moral of the story is simple: this could happen to you...to your campus...to your auxiliary organizations like parking or bookstore or any other campus merchant.

Please give a thought to passing this link to your campus merchants. I'd also suggest you make stories like this a part of your security training.

The bad guys are increasingly targeting small and medium sized businesses. With the typical open networks and varying degrees of security on most campuses, you should consider yourself at risk every day. Which reminds me, have you taken a look at your latest vulnerability scans? When was the last time you updated anti-virus and installed patches on ALL your systems?

Please don't be the next one in a headline. It'll surely ruin your day.