Before You Arrive

1. Review the IT essentials for new students
2. Activate your NetID
3. Set up Cornell Two-Step Login
4. View your registration, enrollment, student financials, course options, and more
5. Select an email system (Gmail or Outlook)
6. Set up secure campus Wi-Fi with eduroam
7. Activate your Cornell Zoom account

While You Are Here

• Connect to campus Wi-Fi (eduroam)
• Download the Microsoft Office suite for free
• Learn new skills for free with LinkedIn Learning and Skillsoft
• Protect your devices and stay safe online
• Use these tips to spot email scams
• Access course materials with Canvas
• Find CU Print printers on campus
• Book a study space (quiet space, Zoom space, or small group space)
• Register a Device That Doesn't Have a Browser (Video Game Consoles, Smart TVs, etc.)

Collaboration Tools

• Zoom
• Cornell Secure File Transfer
• Microsoft Teams for chat, video, and file collaboration

Protect Your Data, Identity, and Privacy

A Message from Robert Edamala, Chief Information Security Officer

Greetings,

It’s that time of year! October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM), an annual campaign to share helpful resources everyone needs to stay safe and secure online.

The theme this year is Secure Our World. Throughout the month Cornell’s IT Security Office will share all the ways that you can protect yourself, your family, and the Cornell community from online threats year-round.

Cybercrime can do significant damage.

You have likely heard of the numerous cyberattacks affecting many large organizations. The attack on AT&T resulted in millions of account holders’ personal information (including Social Security numbers) being released on the dark web. Colleges and universities have also suffered attacks.

Cyberattacks can be sophisticated.

Cybercrime is a money maker. Cybercriminals are abundant worldwide, and will target anyone and everyone, including individuals like you and me. The advent of artificial intelligence – a tool designed to do great good for the world – can be abused to make scams and phishing attacks harder to detect. 

But we’re not defenseless. 

Fortunately, most attacks are easy to recognize. As a shared responsibility, here are a few ways we can protect ourselves and each other from cyberattacks:

• Watch out for, and do not approve, Duo two-step prompts you didn’t initiate. This likely means your NetID password has been stolen, so change it immediately and contact the IT Security Office.
   
• Be ever vigilant and report email scammers posing as a professor offering fake jobs, or a supervisor asking you to send money.
   
• Never share your NetID password or reuse your password on non-Cornell websites and watch out for phishing emails that attempt to steal your password. See the Phish Bowl for examples. 
   
• Check these 15 security and privacy tips for college students.

Please join me this month in securing our world. The more informed and empowered you and I are, the safer our community is. 

Thank you.

Robert Edamala

Chief Information Security Officer

Identity theft is real

• Is your NetID password strong enough? Find out here.
• Report if your NetID password is compromised.
• Apply best practices to your mobile device.
• See examples of phishing emails that have been spotted at Cornell.
• Use Cornell's VPN (virtual private network) service when you need to connect to campus resources that would otherwise be unavailable from distant networks.
• Make sure your computer has antivirus software.

Research Tools

Qualtrics Survey Tool

Cornell provides a survey tool, Qualtrics, for use at no cost by Cornell students, faculty, staff, and retirees. Users can create and distribute their own surveys and gather information in support of the university's educational mission and organizational goals.

CCSS

The Cornell Center for Social Sciences is a strategic partner who can help take your research to the next level with a full continuum of tools and expertise. We offer a range of support, technology, and collaboration in each of our focus areas: data services, research, computing resources, consulting, and training.

CAC

Cornell University's Center for Advanced Computing offers staff and students research education and outreach, as well as computing and consulting services that range from HPC systems and storage to programming, database development, and web portal design.