Information Security

Mission Statement

The Information Security Office is committed to lowering the risk profile of the University’s electronic information by implementing industry best practices to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of student, faculty, and staff information. We uphold the University’s compliance obligations by developing information security policies, providing security awareness training, and overseeing the implementation of strategic information security initiatives.

Scam of the Week

No Call? Good Call

Imagine seeing an email appear in your inbox that looks like a PayPal receipt. It claims you just sent a large payment for a subscription renewal, but you don’t recall ever signing up. The email includes a phone number and states that if you didn’t make the purchase, you must call within the next 12 hours to dispute the charge. It looks like a real PayPal invoice, and you might be tempted to call the number right away.

But this email is a trick to get you to dial the “support” number. It’s actually a phishing scam! If you call, a cybercriminal will answer and pretend to help you. They’ll request your personal and financial information to “process the refund,” or they might ask you to install software on your device to “fix” the issue. No matter what they ask you, their goal is to steal your money or data!

Follow these tips to avoid falling victim to this phishing scam:

If you receive an unexpected PayPal invoice or renewal notice, don't call the phone number listed in the email. Instead, verify if the charge is real by logging in to your PayPal account on the official website or mobile app.
Urgency is a red flag. By pressuring you to respond within 12 hours, cybercriminals are hoping to trick you into acting without thinking.
Even though this particular email doesn’t contain any suspicious links or attachments, that doesn’t mean it’s safe. In this case, the phone number in the email is the trap!

Time It Takes a Hacker to Brute Force Your Password in 2025
Hardware: 12 x RTX 5090 | Password hash: bcrypt(10)

Number of Characters	Number Only	Lowercase Letters	Upper and Lower Case Letters	Numbers, Upper and Lowercase Letters	Numbers, Upper and Lowercase Letters, Symbols
4	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly
5	Instantly	Instantly	57 minutes	2 hours	4 hours
6	Instantly	46 minutes	2 days	6 Days	2 weeks
7	Instantly	20 hours	4 months	1 year	2 years
8	Instantly	3 weeks	15 years	62 years	164 years
9	2 hours	2 years	791 years	3k years	11k years
10	1 day	40 years	41k years	238k years	803k years
11	1 week	1k years	2m years	14m years	56m years
12	3 months	27k years	111m years	917m years	3bn years
13	3 years	705k years	5bn years	56bn years	275bn years
14	28 years	18m years	300bn years	3tn years	19tn years
15	284 years	477m years	15tn years	218tn years	1qd years
16	2k years	12bn years	812tn years	13qd years	94qd years
17	28k years	322bn years	42qd years	840qd years	6qn years
18	284k years	8tn years	2qn years	52qn years	463qn years