You likely heard about the data breach at Health Equity which exposed personally identifiable information for some employees of Williams College associated with their Health Reimbursement Accounts. 2-step authentication and the use of encryption on sensitive data would have prevented this breach.
Although this breach of course did not originate at Williams, it does highlight the importance of secure computing when working with any confidential or legally protected information.
You may think that you practice safe computing and would never fall for a scam while at work, but in fact the breach was due to an employee falling for an online ruse while on their home computer. 2-step authentication and the use of encryption on sensitive data would have prevented this breach.
Williams requires many departments to have 2-step authentication turned on for their accounts and in fact over 1200 faculty, staff and students are successfully using it now.
If you are at all unfamiliar with 2-step, please read this first http://oit.williams.edu/help-docs/2-factor-authentication/
You can sign up for Google 2-step by following these directions: http://www.google.com/2step
You do not need to be on campus to turn this on. If you’d like assistance with the setup please email [email protected], call us at 413 597 4090 or visit us on the 1st floor of Jesup (our NEW location!) or the 2nd floor of Sawyer CET.
Along with 2-step, consider how you are handling and sharing protected information for your work. Williams has guidelines to help: https://oit.williams.edu/policies/data-classification-policy-and-usage-guidelines/
We would be happy to work with you to make sure your processes are secure, protecting you and the college. Contact us as above and we’ll arrange a consultation for you or your department.
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