Nearly 500 UC Davis faculty or staff members took a new, short online UC course in August that showed them how to protect their sensitive information stored in computers. Four received $50 gift cards for their efforts.

The Information Security Awareness course, designed for non-technologists, describes best security practices for preventing compromises of sensitive personal and university data. Completing the course takes about 30 to 40 minutes.

The UC Office of the President is promoting the training by offering four $50 gift cards per month from August through December. A monthly random drawing will award the cards to faculty or staff who finish the tutorial. Employees who complete the training, but do not win, remain eligible to win gift cards through December.

Donald Orr, Kyle Rutledge, Alyse Defazio, and Heather Spaulding won the drawing for August.

Theft and leaks of sensitive information can create major security breaches that damage work, careers and reputations, and are expensive to repair. The university encourages employees to know and follow good cyber-security practices, to protect both the UC and themselves.

Campus Chief Information Officer Pete Siegel announced the course in a message to the campus in late July. If you have questions, please contact campus IT Security Coordinator Robert Ono at raono@ucdavis.edu.

"This is a good, useful course," Ono said. "It offers practical ways to protect personal data, which should concern everyone."

To take the training, please follow these steps--\024and you might still receive a gift card if you complete the training this year:

• Visit the UC Learning Management System website
• At the authentication prompt, please enter your UC Davis login ID and passphrase
• Once on the main page, in the Search box (top left corner), type in "information security awareness" and click on "Go"
• Click on "Information Security Awareness" (DAC-TT0900) from the list, and then on "Start"