HOME / BLOG /

November 2016

How to Get and Use a Personal Digital Certificate

Digital certificates are commonly used for signing email messages, electronically signing documents, and encrypting e-mails. UT provides digital certificates free of charge to UT faculty and staff members via the web page at  https://certificates.security.utexas.edu/.

Comprehensive documentation about these digital certificates can be found on the UT wiki at https://wikis.utexas.edu/display/digitalcertificates/Digital

Read more about How to Get and Use a Personal Digital Certificate

Upgrade Your Web Sites to SHA-256 SSL Certificates

Web sites still exist that either do not provide for https:// (secure http) traffic, or do, but with older SHA-1 certificates that do not implement the SHA-256 standard.  Here is why, if you own one of these sites, you should upgrade them now ---

The IT industry wants all web site traffic to be encrypted, and is employing different strategies to make that happen.  One is to increase the number of warning messages from web browsers about unencrypted or under-encrypted web pages.  Another is  Google's PageRank algorithm, which currently scores encrypted pages

Read more about Upgrade Your Web Sites to SHA-256 SSL Certificates

What you need to know about USB-C

Many new devices are starting to sport the new “USB-C” (or USB Type C) ports.  These ports are different in almost every way from previous generations of USB ports and devices.

Traditionally "USB" referred to the port, the cable, and the protocol being used over them.  While over the years there have been several different versions of USB ports (USB 1, USB 2, USB 3) and cables (micro, mini, etc), they all used the same USB protocols.  Using these USB devices was fairly painless, and cabling worked on the "if it fits, it works" theory.

With USB-C, that changes

Read more about What you need to know about USB-C

Data Destruction

All confidential or sensitive information (data) must be protected throughout its lifecycle, including its destruction.  Whether the data is on paper, removable media, or a hard drive in a computer or copier, it must be securely destroyed before the medium holding it is discarded, sent to surplus, or returned to the vendor for lease or warranty return.

Confidential data is stored on all manner of media, including:

  • Paper documents (printouts, scans, hand written, etc).
  • Hard drives from computers, printers, copiers, or appliances.
  • Removable
Read more about Data Destruction