Cyber Security Awareness Month – Week Three

It is week three of Cyber Security Awareness Month and this week is all about updating outdated software. There is also another chance to win a £20 Amazon voucher.

 

Updating Outdated Software

It is really important to keep software up-to-date, outdated software exposes you and UCL to harm from malware and compromise.

Keep the following updated:

• Operating Systems
• Applications including browsers
• Plugins

You should also use up-to-date anti-virus software that updates itself regularly, most anti-virus software will update itself every hour.

Use automatic updates where you can so that updating your machine and software does not rely on you remembering to check and update everything. You should always check that your updates are happening as malware often turns your updates and anti-virus off.

Only get updates from the company that provides the operating system, application or plugin. It is easy for criminals to trick people into thinking they are updating their machine with a pop-up on a website or phishing email when in fact the user will just be downloading and installing malware. It is also worth mentioning that you should always use legitimate software and not pirated or unlicensed versions of software. You can end up unwittingly installing malware or making your research invalid from using unlicensed software. It just isn’t worth the risk.

 

See this short video on why software updates are important from Proofpoint:

https://share.vidyard.com/watch/vEF3qvdQ5KUCnuwqn5YP5q

 

Quiz

Be in with a chance to win a £20 Amazon voucher by answering the following question:

What is an example of something that needs to be kept up-to-date?

Send all entries to isg@ucl.ac.uk with the subject line: Cyber Security Awareness Month – Week Three.

Entries will only be accepted from UCL email addresses.

 

*Thanks go to Proofpoint for helping to provide some of the content for this year’s Cyber Security Awareness Month.