Investigating cybersecurity threats and creating top-notch automated responses came naturally to UNLV students as they faced off against hundreds of cybersecurity experts.

On April 16, student workers from our Information Security Office (ISO) joined Splunk's Southwest Boss of the SOC (BOTS) competition. The competition presented a capture the flag style experience for students, cybersecurity professionals, and educators to solve problems resembling common challenges faced by experts in the cybersecurity field.

Higher educational institutions are among the most common targets of cyberattacks in the US, but universities increasingly see a silver lining to the threat landscape: Defending against such attacks can be a good training opportunity for the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.

With the new year comes new tricks, and phishing scammers are using artificial intelligence (AI) to target people at an increasing rate. Now is the best time for UNLV employees to stay sharp to ensure they don’t take the bait.

Phishing is a type of cyberattack where scammers pretend to be someone you trust — like a bank or friend — to trick you into sharing passwords and other sensitive information or downloading malicious software. Oftentimes, fake emails are used to carry out this crime.

On Oct.18, UNLV cybersecurity liaisons gained insight into the aftermath of a ransomware attack and learned some new strategies to enhance their own incident response plan. The opportunity was presented to them through the annual cybersecurity liaison event hosted by the Office of Information Technology.

When logging into your ACE account, you might be prompted to “verify it’s you.” This is called multifactor authentication (MFA). Although it may seem like an additional step in your busy schedule, it’s an important part of keeping your login information safe.

From taking notes in class to applying what they’ve learned to real world scenarios, seven student employees joined UNLV’s Information Security Office (ISO) this past summer to refine what they’ve been learning in their master’s program and continue adding on skills needed for their future careers. The students joined the team starting this May as graduate students pursuing their master’s degree in management information systems (MIS) or computer science and economics.

Several employees and student workers from UNLV Information Technology (IT) helped run this year’s Black Hat USA, an internationally recognized cybersecurity event series that provides cutting-edge research, developments, and trends in the world of information security. The event lasts over a six-day period, this year gaining over 20,000 attendees, in which our team helped to maintain.