Throughout the month of October, hundreds of University of Toronto (U of T) staff, students and faculty sharpened their knowledge of remote security by participating in U of T’s virtual Cyber Security Awareness Month (CSAM) events and activities.
CSAM, an internationally recognized initiative, is hosted annually at U of T by ITS’ Information Security (IS) team in partnership with Education, Awareness & Culture.
One hundred and four tri-campus community members attended U of T CSAM events, including two Coffee with the CISO sessions and a “Get to know your Information Security team” webinar panel. Additionally, U of T’s Mississauga and Scarborough Information and Instructional Technology Services (IITS) teams hosted U of T’s first virtual information security conference called Secure Together, featuring 49 presenters, each speaking on an aspect of privacy and security. If you missed it, you can watch the conference here.
The CSAM 2020 events and programs highlighted the many Information Security programs available to the U of T community. On Oct. 28, a launch event was held for the Data Asset Inventory and Information Risk Self-Assessment (DAI-IRSA) program, which featured presentations from Information Security and Data Governance staff who provided an overview of the program and offered information on how and why to enrol.
“CSAM is a great opportunity to enhance awareness and educate our community on the daily routines and precautions we can perform to protect ourselves and our data.” says Deyves Fonseca, associate director, Information Security Operations, ITS. “I was happy to take part in this year’s campaign to help relay these important messages and remind our tri-campus community about the available programs that help keep us safe.”
Throughout the month-long campaign, 12 educational blog posts were published and viewed by 890 readers and 34 Twitter posts received 647 engagements. These communications ranged from highlighting secure remote teaching resources to outlining U of T’s new multi-factor authentication service, UTORMFA.
The U of T community was also encouraged to test their security and privacy knowledge in activities, including weekly CSAM Trivia and a new UTORMFA BINGO game. The participants of both games were entered into raffles to win Amazon gift cards.
- The CSAM Trivia 2020 winners are Seth Akira Feldman, Mahnoor Mukhtar and Tara Wells
- The UTORMFA BINGO winner will be announced shortly.
Though the campaign has come to an end, we should not let down our guard when it comes to remote security. Continue to visit the Security Matters website regularly for resources. Plus, review links to all the CSAM 2020 materials here: