Securing information and information systems, products or services remains a core responsibility of Georgia Highlands College and GHC has a legal and ethical responsibility to protect information in its care with effective and industry-standard cybersecurity safeguards.

Therefore, we’ve upgraded Duo Security at GHC with Duo Verified Push to add an additional layer of protection for employee and student accounts by requiring our users to enter a three-digit code in a prompt that will appear on their Duo Mobile app when accessing D2L, email, or related GHC websites and services. This protects the security of our systems by preventing users from accepting Duo pushes originating from a compromised device or by a cybercriminal who has obtained stolen login credentials.

For example, imagine an employee in the Financial Aid or Registrar’s office leaves for vacation and notices their phone has a Duo push. Ordinarily they would ignore it, but this time they deny it. They immediately receive a second notification and assume it must be from a software system they forgot to close and accept the push.

Without Duo Verified Push, a cybercriminal who has guessed (or stolen) the vacationing employee’s password now has access to personally identifiable information belonging to our students. However, with Verified Duo Push that same attack is immediately stopped because the bad actor is unable to complete the transaction – they cannot enter the unique code in the Duo app, and the employee is encouraged to alert their IT team with a fraud report.

Duo Verified Push will similarly protect student accounts from misuse and compromise.

If you have any issues accessing your GHC accounts with Duo, please contact IT for assistance by emailing rt@highlands.edu or by phone at 678-295-6775.