Student Gov: Cybersecurity and MavLife
Bailey Brendel ® Staff Writer |
The Minnesota State University, Mankato Student Government held a meeting in the Ostrander Auditorium Wednesday, Jan. 20.
The first to present was from Vice President for Technology, Mark Johnson and Chief Information Security Officer, Mike Menne in IT Solutions on cybersecurity. In their research they found a 500% increase in phishing attempts, or the fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information through your technology.
This means hackers want to use email to break into your computer and get data on you and students around you. To combat this issue, all new student accounts will have Multi-Factor Authentication.
IT Solutions is also working on many other ways of implementing and enhancing cybersecurity. To help students now, they gave five steps students can take to protect themselves. The first being think twice before you click on anything, including links. The others include enabling multi-factor authentication, protecting your socials, keeping tabs on your apps, and mixing up your passwords.
To enable multi-factor authentication, go to mnsu.edu/cyberawarepledge.
After presentations they moved to an open forum. Martin Jacaruso, the graduate advisor for Maverick Adventures, announced the organization’s new, COVID-19 Safe Event, an outdoor photo contest.
This event is open to all students and will have five categories they can enter in. There will be winners from each category, and a student’s choice category will be included. More information will be given to students soon.
Senator Jack Wheeler gave his report on his plan for the upcoming semester. Last semester his plan was to add more recycling bins to off campus buildings, and so far it has been very successful. Wheeler wanted to provide a service that would be beneficial to all members of the Maverick community. To continue this innovative idea, he is working with the MavLife app, where there will be a social channel for students to write input on services they need on and off campus.
“Currently, we don’t have resources for students with food insecurity to ask questions directly to staff, and I believe using the MavLife app will give us the ability to bridge the two,” Wheeler said.
Following presentations, Tatsuya Okawa was elected and sworn in as one of the new Residential Life Senators.
A Senator position for the College of Allied Health and Nursing as well as a new Residential Life Senator, a College of Science and Engineering Technology, and an Off-Campus Senator position is open! If interested check out the Student Government Engage page.