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 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 setup. 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 2025 numbers may surprise you:

• Companies reported $3B in losses due to business email compromise.
• The global average cost of a data breach in 2025 was $5M, a 12% increase over 2024.
• There was a 500% increase in ClickFix attacks.
• 82% of enterprises surveyed discovered AI agents that security or IT didn’t previously know about
• There was a 56% increase in AI-driven attacks, led by deepfake impersonations and AI-enabled malware.
• Mobile social engineering attacks had a 40% higher success rate than traditional email phishing.

References for statistics shared above
2026 Press Release by Cloud Security Alliance
2026 Cost of a Data Breach Report by IBM / Ponemon Institute
2025 FBI Internet Crime Report (PDF)
2026 Data Breach Investigations Report by Verizon (PDF)

Register for Cybersecurity Awareness Month events

Should I Put That Into ChatGPT? Protecting UCSF Data When Using AI
Oct. 20, 10 – 11 a.m.
Featuring UCSF Data Security Compliance Director Mary Morshed

AI and Privacy
Oct. 21, 12 – 1 p.m.
How does rapid AI adoption intersect with modern privacy laws? Join Goodwin Associate Reema Moussa for a focused, one-hour session on protecting user data, staying compliant and mitigating legal risk in the age of AI.

AI, Deepfakes & Social Engineering
Oct. 28, 10 – 11 a.m.
Featuring Ben Syn, director of University and Career Education, KnowBe4

Public Interest Cybersecurity: How Cal Researchers Defend Nonprofits, Schools and Cities from Digital Threats
Oct. 29, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Who gets left behind when federal resources focus only on “national security threats”? Join this talk by Sarah Powazek, director of public-interest cybersecurity at the UC Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity, to learn how Cal researchers are shaping the national conversation on “critical infrastructure.” Sarah will share more about cutting-edge survey research on nonprofits and international coalition-building efforts to provide a safety net of digital defenses for all organizations, regardless of their technology budget size. She will also highlight key market failures the team is investigating, innovative solutions such as cybersecurity clinics and student/regional SOCs, and other ways academia, industry, government and nonprofits are joining forces to provide defenses against rapidly growing digital threats.

ClickFix: Turning User Trust Into Code Execution
Oct. 29, 2 – 3 p.m.
What is the “ClickFix” compromise? Join us for a cybersecurity presentation led by UC Irvine’s cybersecurity club, Cyber@UCI, exploring ClickFix, a social engineering technique that tricks users into performing actions that can ultimately compromise their devices. During this interactive demo, we’ll show what ClickFix is, why it’s malicious and the warning signs you need to recognize. We’ll also cover practical defenses and simple steps you can take to stop an attack before it becomes a security incident. Know hackers’ tricks and you’ll nix the ClickFix!

More cybersecurity resources

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

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