Cyber Security Awareness Month Don't Let One Click Sink Your Semester

Information Security

Mission Statement

The Information Security Office is committed to lowering the risk profile of the University’s electronic information by implementing industry best practices to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of student, faculty, and staff information. We uphold the University’s compliance obligations by developing information security policies, providing security awareness training, and overseeing the implementation of strategic information security initiatives.

Scam of the Week

Booked for a Breach

After weeks of job applications with no reply, you receive a request for a 30-minute call with a Meta recruiter. The link opens a scheduling calendar app that prompts you to choose an interview time. It then asks you to enter your name, email address, and phone number, and then to complete a CAPTCHA puzzle to prove you’re human. Finally, it asks you to log in to your Facebook account.

But this interview invite is actually a phishing scam! The invitation comes from an unfamiliar recruiting domain, not Meta, and the scheduling calendar app is not affiliated with the organization. The Facebook login page is a malicious fake that will send anything you enter to cybercriminals. If you enter your Facebook password, cybercriminals will try it on the real Facebook site right away. If Facebook asks for a two-factor authentication code, the fake page will ask you for the same code, allowing cybercriminals to use it before it expires. And to really convince you, the screen will say that you will receive a confirmation email within the next 90 minutes; just enough time for them to log in to your account and take it over.

Follow these tips to avoid falling victim to this scam:

Check the web address before clicking on a link or entering any personal data. If the web address is unfamiliar, that is a big red flag.
Do not approve a sign-in attempt or share a two-factor authentication code unless you started the login yourself via the official website.
Verify the recruiter and role on the organization’s official careers site.

Time It Takes a Hacker to Brute Force Your Password in 2026
Hardware: 16 x RTX 5090 | Password Hash: bcrypt(10)

Number of Characters	Numbers Only	Lowercase Letters	Upper and Lower Case Letters	Numbers, Upper and Lowercase Letters	Numbers, Upper and Lowercase Letters, Symbols
4	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly	Instantly
5	Instantly	Instantly	46 minutes	2 hours	3 hours
6	Instantly	37 minutes	2 days	5 Days	1 week
7	Instantly	16 hours	3 months	10 Months	2 years
8	Instantly	2 weeks	12 years	50 years	132 years
9	2 hours	1 year	636 years	3k years	9k years
10	20 hours	32 years	33k years	191k years	645k years
11	1 week	839 years	1m years	11m years	45m years
12	3 months	21k years	89m years	737m years	3bn years
13	2 years	567k years	4bn years	45bn years	221bn years
14	23 years	14m years	241bn years	2tn years	15tn years
15	229 years	383m years	12tn years	175tn years	1qd years
16	2k years	9bn years	653tn years	10qd years	75qd years
17	22k years	259bn years	33qd years	675qd years	5qn years
18	228k years	6tn years	1qn years	41qn years	372qn years