Phishing attacks that have increased in recent days have not bypassed any industry or organization as we all know. Universities are among the communities that have their share of these cyber attacks. In order to prevent increasing cyberattacks, many universities in the United States have started to provide cybersecurity awareness training to their students. The University of Santa Cruz in California is one of these universities. Santa Cruz University officials take education one step further and offer phishing simulations to their students. In these phishing simulations, they sent students emails that look like phishing attacks and they will be provided with exercise. Let’s take a look at the contents of these phishing simulations, which are the best way to prevent attacks on university campuses.
Why Phishing Simulations are the Best Way to Prevent Attacks on University Campuses?
Phishing simulations usually measure the level of awareness of individuals very well, as they can be targeted. This is also very important when it comes to students. For this purpose at Santa Cruz University, before the training, they determined the level of awareness of the students by phishing simulations. After the results revealed the cyber awareness levels, students will encounter phishing simulations at regular intervals throughout the academic term. Since the phishing emails were not a part of a real attack, if students clicked on malicious links, nothing happened to them. Students who click on these links or attachments are directed to an educational cybersecurity page, and the university ensures that students who fail in this way receive the necessary training. Thanks to this training, students become able to understand what to do when faced with phishing attacks again.
The first goal of Santa Cruz and all other universities that started to implement this awareness training is the same. It is to educate students and raise awareness. Hackers can deceive all of us with these new, developed phishing attacks. Because they are developing and adapting very well to the modern world. The important thing is to learn from our mistakes and to prepare for coming attacks. No matter how much we rely on cybersecurity practices, individuals should receive training to protect themselves, because, in fact, no security tool provides 100 percent protection.
Best Way to Prevent Attacks on University Campuses: What Else Can We Do?
1. If you have received a phishing e-mail, do not respond to the e-mail.
Unexpected e-mails from people you do not know are likely to be phishing e-mails. If you respond to these, you could fall victim to a phishing or ransomware attack. Instead of responding, modify your spam filter to block such phishing emails and report the situation to your email provider.
Although phishing simulations are known as the best way to prevent attacks, they are actually only the beginning. It is up to you to train yourself and your employees according to the results of the simulations. We designed our Cyber Security Awareness Trainer for exactly this purpose. Phishing Simulation works in an integrated manner with our tool to complete your weak points with training. By using our trainer with phishing simulations, you can provide 100 percent protection against any attack.
“This post is originally published at www.phishing.org.uk”
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