October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month and ITS and the Information Security Office are celebrating all month long with events, resources and a month-long competition against NC State University and Duke University.
Founded in 2004, Cybersecurity Awareness Month, held each October, is the world’s foremost initiative promoting cybersecurity awareness and best practices. Businesses, government agencies, colleges and universities — like UNC-Chapel Hill — all celebrate Cybersecurity Awareness Month as part of keeping our communities cyber-safe.
This year’s theme, “Secure our world,” empowers everyone to understand the simple ways to protect yourself — and your world — from online threats. We’re increasingly connected through digital tools and each of us has a part to play in keeping ourselves and others safe.
Event schedule
Join us for these Cybersecurity Awareness Month events (scroll or click to jump to more event details):
- October 1-31: Play the Cyber Bowl, an online competition to determine which school, UNC, Duke or NC State, has the most cyber smarts. Even better, when you play, you’ll be entered to win prizes!
- October 14: In-person event in the Pit featuring free food, lockpicking and more.
- October 15: Join a Zoom presentation with Jonathan Fox, a senior cybersecurity consultant in the Engineering and Architecture Group at Microsoft.
- October 22: Live recording of the Data@Rest podcast, featuring podcaster and cybersecurity expert Chris Romeo.
And throughout the month, experts from the Information Security Office will share tips and security news at Safe Computing at UNC, here on ITS News, on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter).
October 1-31: Play the Cyber Bowl
This October, UNC-Chapel Hill, NC State University and Duke University will compete in a month-long test of cyber skills to earn bragging rights and win prizes.
The inaugural Cyber Bowl, which will run from October 1 to October 31, will determine which of the state’s top universities — UNC-Chapel Hill, NC State University or Duke University — has the most cyber savvy campus.
It’s easy to play the Cyber Bowl! Simply log into the Cyber Bowl website, which is hosted by NC State University, with your Onyen between October 1 and 31 and take the quiz to contribute points to UNC’s total score.
October 14: Visit our security tent in the Pit
Swing by the security tent in the Pit on October 14 between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Event highlights include:
- Free food
- Hands-on lockpicking
- Swag and giveaways
- Carolina Key
- Play the Cyber Bowl
- Visit Mia, the UNC Police therapy dog
This event is co-hosted by the Information Security Office, the ITS Service Desk, School of Medicine IT and UNC Police.
October 15: Webinar with a Microsoft cybersecurity specialist
Join the Information Security Office for a free webinar, “Identity Under Siege: Navigating the Complexities” with Jonathan Fox on Tuesday, October 15, at 2 p.m. The webinar is free, but registration is required. Use onyen@email.unc.edu as your email address when you register.
The webinar will discuss the challenges of security identities, both the parts and pieces that can be implemented to secure identities from a technical standpoint and then the parts that are related to human nature.
Jonathan Fox is a senior cybersecurity consultant in the Engineering and Architecture Group at Microsoft. Before joining Microsoft, he was a senior identity engineer at MetLife.
His forte is in identity systems and the associated privileged management that comes with such control planes for an organization’s environment and associated lifecycles — whether user, application or external.
Fox is a Microsoft Certified Trainer, CompTIA certified trainer and a Cisco Certified Solutions Instructor (CCSI) teaching both associate and professional level curricula.
October 22: Live Data@Rest podcast recording
On October 22 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m, join a live recording of the cybersecurity podcast Data@Rest. The event is free, but registration is required. Use onyen@email.unc.edu as your email address when you register.
Michael Williams of the Information Security Office and Charlie Mewshaw, cybersecurity specialists who produce and host Data@Rest will record an episode over Zoom and invite the audience to participate.
They’ll discuss embedding security mindfulness and creating a security culture and how how higher education can create that security mindset to reduce the reliance on yearly training.
They’ll be joined by fellow podcaster and cybersecurity expert Chris Romeo, a leading voice and thinker in application security, threat modeling. Romeo is the CEO of Devici and general partner at Kerr Ventures. He hosts several award-winning podcasts, Application Security Podcast, The Security Table and The Threat Modeling Podcast.
About National Cybersecurity Awareness Month
National Cybersecurity Awareness Month is designed to engage, educate and motivate. In October 2004, the National Cyber Security Alliance and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security designated the month as a time to raise awareness about cybersecurity to increase the nation’s resiliency in case of a cyber incident. For more than two decades, organizations large and small have come together to celebrate National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. The grassroots movement has become a united effort towards supporting a safer and more resilient cyberspace.