Oct. 2017 

In This Issue:
• CIO's Note
• Data Breach
• Hangouts Meet
• 2-Step
• Secure Cloud
 

Message from OIT Leadership


Dear Customer,

As October comes to an end so does cybersecurity awareness month. But at OIT, our focus on cybersecurity continues every day of the year. In this month’s OIT Connections we bring you news and information with a cybersecurity connection. We have guidance for navigating the cloud, a security upgrade that is part of Google’s new video conferencing tool and we also turned to our Chief Information Security Officer to help us understand why it took so long for the data breach at Equifax to be made public.

I hope the news and tips will help you to stay cyber safe both at work and at home.

Sincerely,

Suma Nallapati
Secretary of Technology & CIO


Data Breach Investigations

Last month the credit monitoring company Equifax made public that it had been hacked and the personal information of 143 million people was accessed. The news wasn’t made public until five weeks after Equifax learned of the hack. It was only a few weeks ago that Yahoo admitted that its 2013 breach affected all 3 billion of its accounts. Many people are wondering why data breaches like these and others take so long to become public. Click here to listen to Colorado’s Chief Information Security Officer Debbi Blyth explain why it’s important that a company understand the scope of a breach before they notify those impacted.

Meet the New Hangouts Meet

Video conferencing and screen sharing using Google Hangouts has been growing in popularity among the state agency workforce. Google recently updated the tool making some widely requested features available. The new version is called Hangouts Meet and it is available to all OIT customers who have a state Google account. Hangouts Meet comes with a more streamlined interface and allows participants from 30 different devices. It has upgraded security allowing it to be a HIPAA qualified platform for video and teleconferencing. Check out TechU and this video for more on the new features and how to use it.

Still Going Strong With 2-Step

We couldn’t have done it without you! One year ago our state workforce was repeatedly falling victim to fraudulent phishing emails. Thanks to all of your participation in Google’s 2-Step Verification successful phishing attempts within the executive branch agencies are no longer a threat to the security of our state accounts and systems!

The addition of 2-Step Verification to all state Google accounts is an enormous security step. It was recognized by the National Association of Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) annual state IT recognition awards as a finalist in the cybersecurity category. For some this wasn’t an easy change and we appreciate all of you who are with us on the journey to keeping the data of Coloradans safe.


Staying Secure in the Cloud
The cloud has made accessing online accounts of all types so much easier and convenient. But if it’s easy for you to get to, it’s easy for someone else to get into. We’ve got advice to protect those precious holiday photos you are storing in the cloud and all your other personal information as well.


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