University of New Brunswick warns faculty, staff to be on alert after data breach

Following a giant data dump published online this month, the University of New Brunswick (UNB) is warning faculty and staff to be on alert.

The breach, dubbed ‘Collection #1,’ included millions of email addresses and passwords, including 4,500 UNB email addresses. Further, the data in the breach is believed to be an aggregate of breaches from thousands of sources, likely collected over several years.

UNB’s senior cybersecurity officer Erik Denis told CBC News on January 27th that only 40 percent of the UNB emails in the collection is active. However, Denis also said it’s important to let people know to be careful as hackers may think compromised emails are more susceptible and make them a target.

For those caught in the data dump — and for anyone concerned about cybersecurity — Denis has some advice.

To start, don’t use the same password for different accounts.

“If a hacker hacked into one of your accounts and has the password, you have to assume that all your other accounts are compromised as well,” Denis said.

Password managers can help in this regard as well. They allow you to create and maintain individual, hard-to-guess passwords for each account, no memorization required.

Denis also advised people to use two-factor authentication (2FA), which adds another step to the sign-in process and makes it more difficult to hack.

Finally, you should also delete old accounts you don’t use anymore. Denis suggested this could help minimize your “cyber circle.”

Ultimately, it takes some work in the present, but it could help you manage your online presence and security in the long run.

Source: CBC News