In the fall of 2021, as part of the university’s cybersecurity initiative, a new department, Cyber-Tech Security (CTS), was established within the Office of Technology Services (OTS). One of the goals of CTS is to establish a culture of cybersecurity at Illinois Tech.

To help create such a culture and combat phishing*, OTS will:

• Enroll all students, faculty, and staff in a yearly, mandatory, online security- awareness training program.
• Introduce the new Phish Alert Button (PAB) in Gmail (web client only), which appears as a fishing-hook icon on the right-hand side of the user’s computer screen or the bottom of a mobile device. The PAB, which is already available, allows users to easily report unsafe emails to the OTS security team for analysis.
  • For Outlook users, a solution will be forthcoming. In the interim, please forward the phishing message as an attachment to reportphishing@iit.edu.

Starting tomorrow, Friday, July 29, 2022, each student, faculty, and staff member will receive an email from cybersecuritytraining@iit.edu. This email has a safe-to-click-on link to KnowBe4, OTS’s security-training partner, and the four, initial, security-awareness training modules that each community member will need to take, namely:

• Module 1: Security Awareness Assessment – Determine your current level of cybersecurity awareness
• Module 2: Security Awareness Training – How to distinguish between spam emails, phishing emails, and spear-phishing emails
• Module 3: Using the Phish Alert Button (PAB) in Gmail – How to handle unsafe emails
• Module 4: Reporting with the PAB – How to report phishing attempts for analysis

This mandatory training for all in the Illinois Tech community will take approximately one hour (total) to complete. Everyone will have one month to complete the training, which will close on Friday, August 26, 2022. Please complete the training within this window.

Cybersecurity is OUR COLLECTIVE responsibility. Each and every member of the IIT community serves as the first line of defense against cyberattacks. By participating in this and future training, every individual is helping to introduce and shape the cybersecurity culture here at Illinois Tech.

The university and OTS thank all students, faculty, and staff in advance for their cooperation in this critical endeavor.

*“Phishing” is a type of cybercrime in which hackers try to gain access to sensitive information, such as usernames and/or passwords, by pretending to be a person or organization the user trusts. Hackers are improving their deception methods by including links or attachments in emails.