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Introduction

When we hear about cyber-crime, we often imagine far-off threat actors setting complex traps to mess with huge organizations.

Introduction

If a device still turns on and does what you need it to do, many people don’t look further. We keep using older laptops, phones, tablets, or software simply because nothing appears to be wrong.

It’s Monday morning.
Coffee in hand. Laptop open. You’re ready to get moving.

Then your elbow clips the mug.

Time slows down just long enough for you to watch coffee spill across the keyboard and disappear into places coffee should never go.

It’s March.

Your accountant is buried. Your bookkeeper is scrambling. Deadlines are looming. Emails are flying faster than anyone can keep up.

Everyone’s head is down, just trying to get through the month.

This isn’t news to you.

But it isn’t news to hackers either.

It’s March.

Green everywhere.
Shamrocks in store windows.
Leprechauns guarding pots of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Spring break gets a bad reputation.

College kids. Questionable decisions. Stories that start with “we thought it was a good idea at the time…”

But adults make plenty of spring break mistakes, too. They’re just quieter. And they usually involve technology.

We often think of universities as places for research, discovery, and education — not targets for cyberattacks. In recent years, however, colleges and academic institutions have become some of the most frequently breached organizations.

This rise in academic cyberattacks matters, not just to the students and people who work there, but also to anyone with a connection to the affected institution.

Not everyone who accesses a system needs the ability to change it. In fact, many security incidents happen because regular accounts have more permissions than they actually require.

“Read-only” access is one of the simplest, and most effective, ways to limit damage to confidential documents.

Not all security breaches involve malware, phishing emails, or hacked passwords. Some start with a simple act of courtesy.

Piggybacking can be a physical security risk, where an unauthorized person gains access to a restricted area by following someone who does have permission.

Most people think of online ads as annoying, but not dangerous. A banner pops up. A video auto-plays. A sponsored link slides into your search results. Most of the time, you scroll past it and move on.

At the same time, we’ve become very familiar with personalized ads that use our prior search history to determine what might pique our interests.