Cybersecurity suggestions for safe, secure surfing
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, a good time to review online user habits.
By Mary Hightower
U of A System Division of Agriculture
Oct, 7, 2022
Fast facts
- October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month
- Secure sites, updated browsers help ensure safe surfing
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LITTLE ROCK — How do you protect yourself from cybercrime? Here are some cybersecurity month suggestions from Karen DiCicco, extension assistant director-information technology for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, a good time to review online user habits.
- Stay up to date — “Make sure your browsers and operating systems are up to date,” she said. “Hackers and cybercriminals can exploit weaknesses in out-of-date operating systems and browsers.” The updated versions not only fix bugs, but also close any loopholes that might be inviting to a hacker.
- Password protocol — Create strong passwords. “These can be a mix of letters and characters,” DiCicco said. “The latest trend is to use phrases with a couple of words that you can remember but aren’t easily guessed by others.
“Make sure your passwords are different!” she said. “If you use that same password for every site and one is compromised, hackers will try those credentials on other sites.”
- Secure sites only — “Be sure you’re signing into a secure site,” DiCicco said. “Sometimes, when we’re typing a site name and you get one character off, you’d be amazed at what will come up.”
“You’ve heard of phishing emails, but there are also phishing sites,” she said. “They look like the real thing, but there are tiny differences.”
The differences might be subtle, such a slightly delayed loading time, or they might have a different domain — the name with the dot such as uada.edu, or the extension — the part after the dot. Extensions include .edu, .com, .info or .gov.
Also look for what comes in front of the domain name. Unsecured sites will not have addresses beginning with “https.” “Often, your browser will tell you whether a site is secure,” she said. Secure sites will display a lock icon before the URL.
- Use bookmarks — DiCicco said a good practice is to bookmark important sites.
“If you bookmark a site, you’re less likely to go to a malicious site if you mis-type a URL,” she said. “You can also use your browser to sync your bookmarks on different computers so they will always be available and you get to the correct page every time.”
To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension
Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @AR_Extension. To learn more about Division
of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture,
visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.
The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses.
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.
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Media contact: Mary Hightower, mhightower@uada.edu