October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and UCOP is celebrating by sharing useful resources and tips to help you protect your digital life.

Take these five easy steps to help protect yourself against digital threats at work

1. Notice alerts and notifications, especially those that inform you if something:
  • Has changed, such as your direct deposit information, password or phone number
  • Is vulnerable or requires an update, such as your mobile device, app, laptop or desktop

2. Enable Multifactor Authentication (MFA) whenever possible.

3. Report incidents or suspected incidents.
If you experience a cyber incident or vulnerability, report it online or contact cybersecurity@ucop.edu as soon as possible: Minutes Matter!

4. Look out for phishing (email), smishing (text/SMS messages), quishing (QR codes) and/or fraudulent phone/voice calls.
In these situations, attackers will often try to convince you to take urgent action. Social engineering remains a serious threat.

5. Protect your identity.
UC offers free identity theft protection through Experian. Enrollment is automatic, but you must set up your account to take advantage of all features. You should have received a welcome email from Experian with a personalized link to access the Experian portal and complete your account set-up. If you’ve misplaced this message, contact Experian’s member services team at (855) 797-0052 for a replacement. (If Experian is not able to locate the record of your eligibility, contact UCPath.) Learn more about your identity theft protection benefit.

Explore cyber security attacks by the numbers

Wondering whether you need to worry about cyber attacks — or how you could inadvertently put yourself at risk? These numbers may surprise you:

• 68% of cyber attacks originate from email
• 65% of internal (i.e., caused by staff) breaches in higher education were accidental
• 35% of participants included personal information in their passwords
• 40% of participants reported creating passwords using a single dictionary word or someone’s name
• 38% of staff admitted to sharing sensitive work information with AI without their employer’s knowledge
• 31% of internal (i.e., caused by staff) breaches in higher education were a result of inappropriate (e.g., excessive) privileges

Register for Cybersecurity Awareness Month events

• The Latest AI-Based Attacks and How to Protect Yourself from AI Scams
• Privacy, AI and Cyberlaw 101
• Q-Day: Quantum Computing, AI and Cybersecurity
• Bitsight 101: A UCOP Cybersecurity Month Case Study
• Humans, Hackers and Hallucinations: The Future of Cybersecurity
• Let’s Talk About Privacy. Let’s Talk About You and Me.
• Authentic or Artificial: AI-Generated Content vs. the Real Deal

More cybersecurity resources

• UC Information Security website
• Report an Incident or Vulnerability
• UCOP Unit Information Security Lead Directory
• Cybersecurity Awareness Month Zoom background
• Celebrate National Cybersecurity Awareness with UC (message from CISO April Sather)

References for statistics shared above
* 2025 State of Cybersecurity report by Check Point
* 2025 Cybersecurity Attitudes and Behaviors Report by CISA
* 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report by Verizon

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