TU Graz expert: Reinfried O. Peter
- Information Security Officer at TU Graz
- Has worked at TU Graz for 37 years, 30 of them at IT Services – and has been deputy head there since 2016
- Also surfs privately via a VPN connection to TU Graz, as this automatically offers better protection
What IT security tips can TU Graz employees easily implement?
- Always keep your operating system and programmes up to date. This way, you receive ongoing security updates that make life more difficult for attackers.
- Set your browser and email programme securely to prevent threats in advance. You can find helpful information about this at security.tugraz.at.
- Attend the internal training course “Cybersecurity – phishing and other security threats” and become even more confident in dealing with email, internet and so on.
All good things come in twos
A second factor when logging on to our university's IT systems makes unauthorised access to TU Graz accounts more difficult. Important: activate at least two tokens for 2-factor authentication (2FA), e.g. one on your laptop and one on your mobile phone. This way, if one of your 2FA tokens is unavailable, you can still access your account on your own and don't have to rely on IT support.
Cybersecurity at TU Graz
TU Graz is exposed to IT attack attempts on a daily basis, but the vast majority of them come to nothing right from the start thanks to our university's security precautions. In view of the amount of attacks and the increased security requirements, it is important to constantly improve protection, and TU Graz recently optimised its firewall. In addition, it is important to locate and eliminate potential security gaps – for example, in special cases it is also necessary to use outdated operating systems at an institute in order to be able to continue running programmes required in research. In such cases, it is important to disconnect the devices in question from the TU Graz network so that they do not become a potential gateway for attacks – please contact the IT Services about this.
