The purpose of the CISO Update was—and continues to be—to highlight incidents in the world of cybersecurity that are interesting to the FIT community because they are applicable to higher education, dangerous, or particularly quirky. All of this is to raise interest and awareness, to help our community protect itself at work and at home, and perhaps to have a little fun. This update will be different. As some of this audience may have heard, this will be my last update: At the end of this month I’ll be retiring from FIT, to spend a little more time pursuing hobbies and being with my grandkids.
In the six years since I joined the college, we’ve accomplished a lot together in a fruitful and collaborative journey. In this journey to become more safe, we’ve increased awareness and training, added lots of technical controls (the details of which I won’t bore you with), and generally raised the community’s consciousness about cyber threats like phishing and other scams. We’ve also defended the college against countless attacks from all over the world. If you didn’t notice all that attacking and defending, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. But trust me, it happens every day.
Of course, the bad guys are still out there. Every day criminals and nation-state actors are patrolling for the next flaw in software, the next unpatched server, or the next user who lets their guard down and clicks on something they shouldn’t. This won’t change, but I’m pretty confident that the vigilance of this community will only grow as well.
The FIT community – starting with the president and cabinet, my boss and CIO Larry Baach, and going all the way through every staff member and student I’ve worked with – has been nothing but supportive of our initiatives. Larry will be stepping in as Interim CISO in September, as the college reviews options on staffing the CISO Office.
I’d also like to thank Patricia Krakow who has worked for me and partnered with me in this journey. Patty has been at FIT for many years in many roles, and I’m so glad that a few years ago she dove into the world of cybersecurity. She will provide continued cyber support and ensure continuity of the program that we built together. And finally I want to thank the staff of the IT divisional units for executing their day-to-day work which includes the security updates and security patching that keeps the college continually safe from harm.
As always, if you believe you’ve received a cyber threat, please follow procedures within Google to report it, or open an urgent ticket with TechHelp.
Goodbye, be well, and stay Cybersafe.
