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

Don’t Sign Off on This Scam

In this week’s scam, you receive an email that looks like it’s from DocuSign, a software that allows you to sign and send official documents online. The email doesn’t contain many details, but it claims that you urgently need to sign a document. It looks official, and even contains DocuSign’s logo, along with a large yellow button labeled "Review Document."

However, the email you received was sent by cybercriminals! If you select the yellow button, you may be directed to a fake login page and prompted to enter your user credentials, or the button might direct you to a phishing website. It may even install malware on your device! What the button does varies, but the scammers' goal remains the same. They want to steal your login information to gain control of your accounts!

Follow these tips to avoid falling victim to this phishing scam:

In most cases, you won’t be asked to sign anything unless you have spoken to someone about it first. Receiving an unexpected email that instructs you to sign an urgent document is a red flag.
If you receive an email that contains unusual or suspicious instructions, be sure to follow your organization’s policies for reporting it.
Always stop and think before you click! Scammers use urgent language in their phishing emails to trick you into acting quickly.

Time It Takes a Hacker to Brute Force Your Password in 2025
Hardware: 12 x RTX 5090 | Password hash: bcrypt(10)

Number of Characters	Number 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	57 minutes	2 hours	4 hours
6	Instantly	46 minutes	2 days	6 Days	2 weeks
7	Instantly	20 hours	4 months	1 year	2 years
8	Instantly	3 weeks	15 years	62 years	164 years
9	2 hours	2 years	791 years	3k years	11k years
10	1 day	40 years	41k years	238k years	803k years
11	1 week	1k years	2m years	14m years	56m years
12	3 months	27k years	111m years	917m years	3bn years
13	3 years	705k years	5bn years	56bn years	275bn years
14	28 years	18m years	300bn years	3tn years	19tn years
15	284 years	477m years	15tn years	218tn years	1qd years
16	2k years	12bn years	812tn years	13qd years	94qd years
17	28k years	322bn years	42qd years	840qd years	6qn years
18	284k years	8tn years	2qn years	52qn years	463qn years