LACOE is committed to helping our educational community build a security-minded culture. To help achieve this goal, the LACOE Information Security team has written cybersecurity awareness content and aggregated external resources to help individuals and organizations become better equipped to protect their digital lives.
- Cybersecurity Awareness
- External Resources
- When we think about cyber-security, most of us think about defending ourselves against hackers who use technological weaknesses to attack data networks. But there is another weakness that hackers can exploit to gain a foothold on your data: human weakness. Learn about you can identify social engineering and the ways to prevent it from happening to you.
- Hackers know that humans are often times the weakest part of the security chain. If they cast a wide enough net, someone will get phished. Learn about the common types of phishing tactics and how to recognize them.
- Today, our digital life has become deeply intertwined with our normal lives. This brings great convenience but not without great risk. Learn about the measures you can take to protect your data in this new day and age.
- Data breaches are happening all too often, so protecting your financial identity is more crucial than ever. Credit freezes are a powerful way to limit the damage resulting from identity theft. It can be confusing navigating the process, so here is a guide on how to start the process.
- MFA is a great way to add substantial security to your accounts. It can be annoying, but the peace of mind you receive is invaluable. Learn about the types of MFA, common MFA-based attacks, and how you can protect yourself from these attacks.
- The rise of public WIFI has been an enormous boon not just for working professionals, but also for opportunistic hackers. Learn about the risks of public WIFI and what you can do to protect yourself.
- As we spend more time online, crimes that previously occurred face to face – like credit card fraud, identity theft, and harassment – now occur online as well. By reporting cybercrime to the appropriate authorities, you can play a role in making the Internet safer and more secure for all. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has aggregated reporting resources for individuals and organizations.
- As a part of CISA’s mission to reduce cybersecurity risk across the US, they have curated a database of free cybersecurity services and tools to support individuals and organizations.
- Ransomware attacks are increasing in scale, sophistication, and frequency, victimizing governments, individuals, and private companies around the world. CISA has launched StopRansomware.gov a one-stop resource for individuals and organizations of all sizes to reduce their risk of ransomware attacks and improve their cybersecurity resilience.
CISA: Cybersecurity Best Practices
- CISA leads the Nation’s strategic and unified work to strengthen the security, resilience, and workforce of the cyber ecosystem to protect critical services and American way of life.
CISA: Known Exploited Vulnerability Catalog
- For the benefit of the cybersecurity community and network defenders—and to help every organization better manage vulnerabilities and keep pace with threat activity—CISA maintains the authoritative source of vulnerabilities that have been exploited in the wild.
CIS: Center for Internet Security Services
- The Center for Internet Security, Inc. (CIS) is a non-profit that makes the connected world a safer place for people, businesses, and governments through their core competencies of collaboration and innovation. CIS offers free solutions such CIS Controls, CIS Benchmarks, and MS-ISAC, which are best practices for security controls, security standards for vendor products, and a membership for free security services, respectively.
JRIC: Information Sharing and Incident Response Services
- The Joint Regional Intelligence Center (JRIC) Cyber Intelligence Unit (CIU) offers free advisories, bulletins, and alerting services. In collaboration with the California Cybersecurity Integration Center (Cal-CSIC), JRIC offers free incident response services before, during, and after a cyber disruption.
NIST: Standards, Frameworks, and Information
- NIST develops cybersecurity standards, guidelines, best practices, and other resources to meet the needs of U.S. industry, federal agencies and the broader public.
- 68% of breaches involve a non-malicious human element. The human element can be easily exploited, but security awareness training has been shown to effectively combat these attacks. LACOE offers a phishing awareness product developed by the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE) with school district employees in mind.
Quick Links and Information
About: The Cal-CSIC is the hub of state government’s cybersecurity events with a focus on responding to cyber threats and attacks that could damage the economy, its critical infrastructure, or computer networks in the state.
Email For Reporting Cyber Incidents Or Services: calcsic@caloes.ca.gov
Phone For Reporting: (833) REPORT-1
Phone For Training Services: 916-845-8882
About: CISA is a part of the US Department for Homeland Security. They are responsible for cybersecurity and infrastructure protection across all levels of government. CISA collaborates with both private and public sectors to ensure a secure and resilient infrastructure for the American people.
Website: https://www.cisa.gov/
Phone: 1-844-Say-CISA
Email: SayCISA@cisa.dhs.gov
Reporting Portal: https://myservices.cisa.gov/irf
About: The FBI is an intelligence and security organization responsible for enforcing federal laws and investigating a variety of criminal activity, ranging from cybercrime to public corruption. The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a central hub run by the FBI for reporting cyber crime.
FBI Website: https://www.fbi.gov/
Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) Website: https://www.ic3.gov/
Phone For Central District of California: (310) 477-6565
Reporting A Crime: https://www.ic3.gov/Home/ComplaintChoice
About: The JRIC is a partnership between federal, state, and local law enforcement and public safety agencies. We receive, integrate, analyze, and share threat intelligence with partners to help them detect, deter, and defend against terrorist attacks and major criminal threats. The JRIC Cyber Intelligence Unit (CIU) supports the prevention, mitigation and response, and remediation cyber security needs of federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial (FSLTT) partner agencies within the JRIC six-county area of responsibility (AOR).
Website: https://www.jric.org/
Phone: 916-926-9545
Email For Inquiries, Cyber Incidents, or Services: cyberprotection@jric.org
About: The MS-ISAC is a collaboration between CISA and the Center for Internet Security (CIS) that offers free services such as a 24x7x365 Security Operations Center (SOC) and incident response team, designed for the nation's State, Local, Territorial, Tribal (SLTT) governments.
Website: https://www.cisecurity.org/ms-isac
SOC Phone: 866-787-4722
SOC Email: soc@cisecurity.org
Reporting An Incident: https://www.cisecurity.org/isac/report-an-incident
