October is IT Security Month at UiO

Highly visible mail campaign

This year's main campaign is highly visible. "It's important to sharpen the message to reach out, so this year our entire website simply consists of seven tips for better security on digital platforms," says Espen Gr?ndahl, the IT security manager at UiO. "We want to reach everyone, both employees and students, with these seven great tips, and they will be displayed on information screens all over UiO in October. If everyone follows the advice, the chances of being subject to hacking, social manipulation, and theft of personal data are significantly reduced for each individual, and UiO also becomes a safer digital space," explains Gr?ndahl.

National Security Month

IT Security Month at UiO is held every year in connection with National Security Month by NORSIS (the Norwegian Center for Information Security). The purpose is to increase engagement, awareness, and knowledge about digital security, both in the general population and in businesses. This year's national theme is social manipulation, a technique in which criminals exploit social media, email, text messages, phone calls, and other digital channels to contact potential victims with fraud, account hijacking, and theft of information and personal data as their objective. Their goal is often to convince you that you need to act quickly or share sensitive information to avoid problems or take advantage of an apparently good opportunity.

IT security manager Gr?ndahl thinks the theme for the national security month is important: "By making the techniques used by scammers to deceive us known, there will be fewer people who can be manipulated and the digital life becomes safer. It's important that people know the dangers that exist out there, so it becomes easier to avoid them." 

Several events at UiO

In connection with IT Security Month, there will also be several events. All faculty, staff and students are encouraged to set aside a day, or a couple of hours, to go through and delete old documents. This is an important security measure, as we know that the more documents we have lying around, the greater the chance that something is stored incorrectly and information is compromised.

In addition, there are three events for IT staff. Two of them focus on security in development and for developers. There will be sharing of experiences across development teams at UiO, and there will also be visits from NAV IT who will share their experiences. In addition, there will be an event for all IT staff where IT security and the IT side of privacy will be addressed, with introductions to password hacking and good passwords, secure use of artificial intelligence and a deep dive into UiO's LSIS, Information Security Management System.