CyberPatriot’s cyber tips #4

The Scripps Ranch High School (SRHS) Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps has a branch dedicated to cyber security. This group participates in a national cyber security program with competitions called CyberPatriot.

Sometimes merely zipping and encrypting files one by one can be labor-intensive and insecure. Instead, if you find yourself with important files to protect, try VeraCrypt! VeraCrypt is a secure file encryption system available on macOS, Windows and Linux.
Always check that the websites you’re using are valid and safe! While many browsers will let you know if the website could be malicious, it’s always better to check for yourself. Some basic tactics include verifying that the address is an HTTPS address and not an HTTP address (HTTPS is secure, but HTTP is not). If the address uses HTTPS, there will usually be a small lock icon next to the address. For further investigation, you could also look at the certificate information of the website (in Chrome, you can do this by clicking on the lock, then on “Connection is secure” and then “Certificate is valid”). Review the provider of the certificate and the expiry date (an expired certificate is invalid).

Senior Nathan Min, commander; sophomore Veer Chopra, sergeant of SRHS CyberPatriot; and sophomore Delbert Tran, CyberPatriot NCO; are leading the CyberPatriot branch at SRHS AFJROTC.