Comment 8: Celebrate Cybersecurity Awareness Month!
You can even do it in a costume if you’d like.
What we’re going to consider today is how to best protect yourself as a person, a professional, and a student. No guide is all-encompassing, including this one. It’s my hope that it will help you avoid some of the most common mistakes that I see people, including myself, make sometimes.
Credentials/Login
Don’t reuse passwords.
Make long passwords. Almost any password can be broken with enough effort, it’s about making it difficult enough that criminals give up.
Use a password manager. Modern life requires having a lot of accounts and a lot of password, which is why we tend to make them simple and reuse them across accounts. Some are better than others so do your research; however, the password manager built into web browser are often insecure. These apps are usually inexpensive and will make you more secure.
Set Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) whenever it is offered. Using email, phone calls, and SMS text are less secure. Authentication apps by Microsoft, Google, and others are more secure. Password manager have started adding MFA features to their apps, which is convenient.
Remember to log out when you’re done. Specifically if you use the computer lab in the Law Library. If you leave without logging out you are potentially giving people free access to your email, files, browser history, and any services you didn’t log out of.
Phishing/Cyber Attacks
Never click on suspicious links. Never open files you weren’t expecting.
A major technology company like Microsoft or Google will never contact you to fix a technology problem.
Verify before you trust. Don’t use phone numbers, emails, websites, etc that were given to you. Verify the contact information you’ve been given with an independent, trusted source. For example, I once got a voicemail saying that a court was going to put out a warrant on me for missing a court day. The voicemail gave me a name and phone number of who to contact. Instead, I looked up the contact information for the court and discovered that I had no court date, there was no potential warrant, and the person whose name I was given didn’t work there. In the age of deepfakes this includes calls and video chats from people you may know.
Using technology like VPNs, safety-conscious web browsers, and anti-virus will keep you better protect.
AI/LLMs/Bots/Agents
Commercial AI may train on what you put into it. Don’t give it too much. Avoid giving it financial, health, or other data you wouldn’t want public. In legal matters this would include information about your client. There are legal AI that say that they keep your confidential data segregated from training and encrypted, but verify before you trust.
Be wary of giving AI access to your accounts. It’s difficult to know what is going on when it can move through your email, bank accounts, etc. I create specific accounts to use for AI use that aren’t attached to my regular (see: important) stuff. Consider a lot of recent news stories where AI decided to arbitrarily delete huge swaths of data, files or, in a recent incident, and entire season of a TV show.
Basic Technology Habits
Keep your devices and software up-to-date. While there is some amount of updates that can cause issues, the majority of the time an update will makes your devices and apps work better and help fix known security holes.
Keep devices that are no longer supported with security patches off the internet. Their exploits are well-known.
—
The ABA Rules of Professional Conduct, Model Rule 1.1 Comment 8 requires, “To maintain the requisite knowledge and skill, a lawyer shall keep abreast of changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.” To that end, we have developed this regular series to develop the competence and skills necessary to responsibly choose and use the best technologies for your educational and professional lives. If you have any questions, concerns, or topics you would like to see discussed, please reach out to e.koltonski@csuohio.edu with “Comment 8” in the subject.
