MARQUETTE, Mich. (WZMQ) – THE 3rd Annual Upper Peninsula Cybersecurity Symposium, is taking place this week at The Northern Center on NMU’s campus.
The three-day symposium covers all aspects of computer security, including the latest cybersecurity trends, threats, and solutions, as well as how to identify threats and vulnerabilities and ways to guard against them. Let Erick Wicklund, the Chief Technology Officer at S-3 explain how data breaches at the corporate level can affect you at home,
“You’re going to start getting more robocalls or spam calls because they have your data, or they might start sending you emails trying to fish data out of you to complete that data so that they can use it maliciously,” said Wicklund.
Malicious can mean many things, from receiving unsolicited sales calls or unwanted ads to the scam that Wicklund calls one of the worst.
“They would infect your computer, and you would get a pop-up that says your Windows machine is broken. Call this number immediately, and we will help you fix it. I know people that have called that number and they lost all of their data,” explained Wicklund.
His biggest piece of advice may seem obvious, but it’s a common cyber sin.
“Please don’t reuse the same password for everything. Make it a password that only you would know,” advised Wicklund.
Michael Sauer, Director of the UP Cyber Security Institute, shares this grim reality.
“With a lot of organizations, It’s not a matter of if, but when,” said Sauer.
The symposium also addressed the growing threat of artificial intelligence, where scammers can actually make themselves sound like a friend or a loved one through voice cloning. The Symposium will wrap up Wednesday afternoon.
