UNF Information Technology Services recognized by FBI in fight against cybercrime

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The FBI was on scene Monday morning at the University of North Florida.

No crimes were committed, rather, agents thanked Information Technology Services for helping them prevent cybercrime.

“Here in Jacksonville, we are recognizing UNF’s Information Technology Services as a key partner to our efforts to detect and mitigate cybercrimes in our community,” FBI Jacksonville Division’s special agent in charge, Rachel Rojas, said.

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The annual UNF-FBI Cyber Security Symposium provides guidance for the prevention of cyber-attacks.

“What we do is a joint symposium. We cover various topics on cybercrime of interest to the community at large, business leaders and at the university,” UNF Chief Information Security Officer Jeff Durfee said.

The university’s hard work is being recognized by the FBI Jacksonville Division with the 2020 FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award.

The award was established in 1990. It recognizes the achievements of those working to make a difference in their community, as well as reduce and prevent criminal activity.

UNF does so through the symposium’s educational outreach and by helping people locally.

“We have done some small partnerships with businesses that want to come and talk, or occasionally they will contact us for some expertise,” Durfee said.

The thought process was, ‘how do we educate our community and the public so that they can be safer in the future?’ And that idea came out with the annual cyber symposium,” Rojas said.

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FBI officials said fighting cybercrime is a team sport.

“It’s always nice to hear from your own community what they’re seeing and to hear from the university perspective,” Rojas said.

Cybercrime is common locally and nationally.

“We see the same sorts of attacks going on. Ransomware is still a problem. It still gets companies. The colonial pipeline was a big national level event but that happens every day to small organizations all over the United States,” Durfee said.

Education goes hand-in-hand with prevention.

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