via: Shannon Ortiz, Director of IT Security at Fordham University
Dear Colleagues and Students,
As you may have heard in the news, Equifax, a credit reporting agency widely used by major credit card companies, banks, retailers, and lenders (including lenders of student loans), has suffered a serious data breach affecting over 143 million people. Cybercriminals have stolen names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and the numbers of some driver’s licenses.
Educate yourself about the breach: Equifax has set up a website, equifaxsecurity2017.com, with more information about the breach. Included is a page for checking whether your personally identifiable information (PII) was part of the breach.
If your PII was breached, Equifax gives you the option to enroll in their credit monitoring service, TrustedID Premier. Note that during the enrollment process, Equifax requires you to sign a consent form in which you agree to not take any legal action against Equifax related to the breach.
Good online hygiene: Fordham IT will NEVER ask for your username and password, or ask you to click any links to validate or verify your account or password. If you receive questionable or suspicious emails, contact IT Customer Care and allow the UISO to validate the legitimacy of these emails.
Educate yourself some more: Take the UISO’s online, self-paced course, “UISO Security Training.” The course can be accessed in Blackboard, under My Organizations. Login to Blackboard via My.Fordham.edu or directly from Fordham’s Blackboard portal.
If you need more information, please reach out to the University Information Security Office: infosec@fordham.edu