UF College of Nursing, Dance Marathon lead way on Gator Nation Giving Day

Gator Nation Giving Day was a 24-hour fundraising event during which thousands of faculty, staff, alumni, students, parents, families and friends came together to support UF and all of its areas of positive impact.

The university set a goal of 5,000 individual gifts for the inaugural Giving Day on Feb. 26. The final count of gifts to UF was
11,535 and the total amount raised was $12,693,810. Dance Marathon took first place on the leaderboard with an impressive
2,685 gifts and $139,154 raised.

The UF College of Nursing was the top college within the academic health center, landing at No. 11 among all UF colleges
and units with 295 gifts and a total of $174,294.

Why we fall for online phishing

Faculty and staff at the University of Florida are taught the basics of phishing: to be mindful of misspellings, unrealistic
money offers and password requests. Scammers have transitioned from information-rich emails to more simplistic
emails, but the goals remain the same:

INVOKE FEAR: Often, “URGENT!” is included in the subject line to make potential victims act fast without thinking. It is
common practice to target people who are required to respond to higher-level staff members such as organizational presidents, directors and deans because they are afraid to disappoint their superior, regardless of the request.

BUILD TRUST: According to Webroot, approximately 1.5 million phishing websites are created each month. These
fraudulent websites are embedded in emails that make you feel as if you are emailing with a person or a group known to
you, such as the UF Computing Help Desk. The goal is to get a potential victim to trust the message enough and invoke a
response (i.e., a click.)

GET INFORMATION: A big misconception about phishing scams is that they only want money. In many cases,
cybercriminals are interested in stealing company data (medical or student financial records) or intellectual property (research). Institutions like UF are targeted because faculty have advanced research that is internationally desirable.

If you suspect an email in your UF inbox is a phishing email or may contain a malicious link, please forward it to
abuse@ufl.edu.

Bridge provides safety resources for faculty, staff

UF Health offers resources that help build staff awareness and hospitality and service skills for use with patients in all
situations. However, it’s also necessary to protect our workers from hostile or threatening interactions.

A new resource for information is the UF Health Bridge Workplace Safety and Violence Prevention site. The site provides links to information about safety protocols, crime prevention classes, security contact phone numbers and other available options for faculty and staff provided by UF Health Shands, UF Health Physicians, UF, UF Police Department and UF
Health Jacksonville.

The site was suggested by the UF Health Shands Violence Prevention Taskforce Committee, spearheaded by Irene Alexaitis, D.N.P., R.N., NEA-BC, UF Health Shands Hospital chief nursing officer and Nursing and Patient Services vice president.

Visit Bridge.UFHealth.org/workplace-safety or click the “Workplace Safety & Violence Prevention” link located under the “Policies & Procedures” tab on the homepage.