October is Cyber Security Awareness Month (CSAM). It is our goal to increase awareness about cyber security and to educate the campus community on ways to better protect themselves or their devices from unauthorized intrusions or cyberattacks. This week we will focus on multi-factor authentication (MFA.)
MFA is defined as a system that requires more than one distinct authentication factor for successful login. Simply stated, a factor is something you have like a cell phone or something you know like a password. A familiar example is withdrawing money from an ATM: your PIN number acts as a second authentication factor in case someone else gets ahold of your ATM card. For MFA with campus applications like UCPath, your smartphone acts as a second factor along with your password. Together these multiple factors will grant you access to your account.
Sam Horowitz, the campus’ Chief Information Security Officer answered frequently asked questions about the new MFA requirement for campus applications, available here.
For more information, visit security.ucsb.edu or #mfaUCinfosec, and don’t forget to follow @UCSBInfoSec on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, where you can find the most up-to-date information about the events we’re hosting this school year. Thanks again, and we hope you stay cyber safe!