Digital Spring Cleaning

April 2018

Many of us are familiar with the concept of spring cleaning. This year, consider taking some time to spring clean your digital life, too. Just like your home, your digital life can become cluttered; things pile up, get out of date, get lost, are no longer needed or need some care.

A good digital spring cleaning can help keep your devices and information safe and secure year round. It can also help improve the speed and performance of the devices and services that you use, and reduces the risk that a hacker could access old information that you’ve forgotten about.

Here are a few tips for refreshing, renewing, and reinvigorating your cyber life. For more info on any of these, see the full article.

1. Review your online accounts.
2. Update your devices.
3. Tune up web browsers.
4. Purge old digital files. (Keep UC retention requirements in mind when purging work files! Talk to your IT department for assistance disposing of sensitive information.)
5. Lock down your login.
6. Refresh your online presence.
7. Back up your files.
8. Dispose of electronic devices securely. (Keep UC's Institutional Information Disposal Standard in mind when disposing of devices containing sensitive information.)

Cybersecurity is an active and ongoing process. For additional news and updates on how best to maintain cybersecurity, go to https://security.ucop.edu/resources/security-awareness/index.html.

For assistance with UC record retention requirements, contact records@ucop.edu or 510-987-0399.

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