October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and Vanderbilt IT has launched its second-annual campaign to make the Vanderbilt community aware of various security issues and how to respond to each through a series of blog posts.
New posts have been published Thursdays on the VUIT News Blog throughout the month of October.
This fourth and final post focuses on the danger of malicious and compromised websites. These websites are full of malware that will automatically install on computers and systems. Users rarely intend to stumble upon such a site but find themselves here by either mistyping a URL or browsing aimlessly.
Malicious and compromised websites can be avoided by promptly identifying a potentially dangerous site when the site presents:
- No SSL certificate (i.e., no “https://” at the beginning of the URL)
- Strange behavior on a legitimate site
- Unwanted downloads
- Unusual URL
- Security tools warnings
Please check the VUIT News Blog frequently to stay abreast of the tools you can use to protect yourself not only from compromised websites, but other types of vulnerabilities as well. For more information about malicious or compromised websites and how to protect yourself, contact VUIT Security Operations at vuit.security.operations@vanderbilt.edu.