Cybersecurity is an ever-changing field, and it is only increasing in importance. Every year, our cybersecurity team engages in a number of major projects, plus regular security maintenance and and awareness effort. This year we've grown our team, increased security across campus, found new ways to grow awareness, and worked on collaborations with other institutions within our network.
The cybersecurity team worked on several major projects throughout 2019. One of the most significant events was the opening of a brand new Security Operations Center. It's staffed by students so it provides hands-on learning for them, and they assist in keeping campus more secure.
Another group was founded in 2019, called the Cybersecurity Liaisons Group. Cybersecurity representatives from across campus are invited to come together and discuss the needs of our campus and ways to stay ahead of the curve.
The Cybersecurity team also had two major implementations in 2019. The first was to require 2-Factor Authentication for all students when accessing sensitive data. The second was a new anti-virus/anti-malware on over 11,000 university-owned devices. These efforts, among other day-to-day tasks, are what help keep our university data and research safe.
Our cybersecurity team does impressive work, but the rest of campus still has an important role to play in protecting themselves and the university. In order to achieve that, the cybersecurity team works throughout the year to raise awareness. Some of the efforts from 2019 were:
Cybersecurity efforst cannot exist in a vacuum, and it is crucial that we collaborate with other institutions, especially those we engage in research with, on how to improve our security efforts. Each year, our cybersecurity team looks for new ways to work with other institutions, and in 2019, they focused heavily on working with the Higher Education Security Round Table (HE-SRT) group which consists of 18 colleges from across the Southeast.
Earlier in the year, two members of the cybersecurity staff went to the University of Alabama to participate in the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the HE-SRT group. Later in the year, Auburn had the opportunity to host the meeting and share perspectives unique to our institution.
| 11,040 university-owned devices converted to a new anti-malware software |
| 38,090,685 threats blocked by firewalls |
| 83% of the nearly 1.5 billion emails inbound to campus contained malicious content and were blocked |
| 5,759 viruses blocked before reaching campus via email |
| 35 representatives from across campus in the Cybersecurity Liaisons Group |
| 18 colleges from across the Southeast attended the Security Round Table at AU |
Last Updated: February 14, 2020
