Ursula Wilkinson, Campus Technology Services' information security analyst, leads the charge to keep data and individuals safe from online attacks, and offers tips tying in with National Cybersecurity Awareness Month.

Q. What does your job entail?

A. My job mostly is a kind of a division of some day-to-day tasks and some project work. Some of my day-to-day tasks involve reviewing security alerts and log information that we get in from a variety of sources. Some of the project work can entail a lot of different things. There are usually technical components to it as well as a lot of writing.

Q. What are some of your top general tips about information security?

A. You are your own best advocate. There's no such thing as perfect security anywhere. There's never going to be. It's impossible. Educating yourself about what you can do to secure your information and your online accounts is probably one of the most important things that you can do. A lot of people don't realize that -- they think that their accounts or their information really just isn't important and that's not true at all. As long as you're using unique passwords you don't have to worry about anybody breaking into any of your accounts with that same password.

Q. What is your favorite thing about your job?

A. One of the things I like about this job is that here at SUNY Oswego I get to do a lot of different things. I get to think about security awareness and content and how we're gonna deliver that. I get to think about actual projects that are technical and hands-on and standing up services that'll help us be more secure. And then I also get to have an influence over some of the direction that we're going with some of the things with some of our initiatives with security related to policy and standards and guidelines. It's really interesting and it keeps it fresh. So I don't know that I have one favorite thing.

To learn more about National Cybersecurity Awareness Month and related topics, visit the CTS cybersecurity website.