Another academic year begins, and so must our preparations for dealing with cyber fraud and identity theft. The University is always a target, and our community must remain vigilant and informed if we are to beat the fraudsters. In this edition, read about tips and best practices for keeping your information secure, new tools for reporting phishing and identifying external emails, upcoming AI guidance, and an overview of the 2024-25 Security Awareness training.

It may seem like we talk about security a lot at UD Information Technologies. This is not only because we are a University and a target, but also because the number of incidents of criminal access to personal or corporate data continues to rise. As higher education is often a place for sharing information, it’s vital that we know how to prevent and report cyber fraud in all its forms.

Read more for tips and best practices to keep your information under YOUR control..

In early September 2024, the IT Security department will be launching the Phish Alert Button (PAB) through our security awareness and phishing platform, KnowBe4. The PAB will be enabled for both Gmail and Exchange and will provide users a quick and safe way to report suspicious emails. Clicking the PAB will forward the suspicious email to our IT Security department for review and remediation, provide reporting metrics, and automatically delete the email from your inbox to prevent future exposure. Going forward, you should report all suspected phishing emails using the PAB as this will replace the current process of forwarding to reportaphish@udel.edu. The PAB will be deployed in your Outlook or Exchange client—you do not have to download or enable it. Learn more about the Phish Alert Button, how it works, and how it helps protect the UD community.

Learn more about the Phish Alert Button, how it works, and how it helps protect the UD community.

This year’s Security Awareness training will be released on September 9th. By completing your Security Awareness Education, you are helping UD reduce the risk of data breaches, malware infections, phishing attempts, and other malicious activities. This knowledge will help you keep your data and UD’s data safe. If the training is required for you, you will receive an email on September 9th indicating you are enrolled in the 2024-25 Secure UD Training, along with instructions

Learn more about the new Security Awareness training.

In an effort to assist users with identifying emails from external sources that might pretend to be from a trusted, internal source, new visual indicators have been added to Outlook emails as of July 3, 2024. Gmail users already had an indicator, but now Outlook users have one, too.

See what the new indicators look like in Outlook web, desktop, and mobile applications..

The AI Guidance document for the University, “Principles for Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools and Services” is under review and will be released soon. The University is publishing this guidance to help the UD community understand the substantial amount of risk generative AI poses. This document presents a University-wide strategy for securely adopting new technology and prompts users for consideration of how they use University data.

Learn about University strategy for generative AI, current policy, and more.