It is again time for UMD faculty and staff to take the university’s annual IT security awareness training. We are excited to take advantage of the new formatting and quiz functionality available through Workday for “Defend Your Shell 2025.”
As always, the university needs a cybersecurity conscious workforce to ensure that our computers, networks, and information are kept safe. Updated for 2025, Defend Your Shell is a basic cybersecurity awareness training created to fulfill the state of Maryland’s expectation that all employees receive cybersecurity awareness information each year.
All faculty and staff, including research assistants and graduate assistants, are required to complete “Defend Your Shell 2025” training before April 5, 2025. This is the case, even if you have recently completed Defend Your Shell 2024.
You can get started at your Learning Home in Workday. You must log in with your UMD credentials and enroll in the course to begin.
In your Learning Home, scroll down to locate the course in the “Required for You” section. Click on the course card to enroll and start the course. If you do not see the course under Required for You, you may navigate directly to the course page and enroll there.
The material is broken up into three main modules with corresponding quizzes that can be completed at your convenience. It takes approximately 45 minutes to view the full series. You may watch the videos at up to double speed, but do not fast forward to the end of the video. Doing so will disrupt your quiz tracking. You will need to reset and rewatch the entire video if you attempt to fast forward and fail the quiz.
To enable captions in English or Spanish, select the Video Settings (gear icon), click on Caption, then select the language to turn on English or Spanish captions.
To access your certificate of completion after finishing the course, search for My Learning Certificates in the main search bar or from your Learning Home.
If you have any questions, please contact the IT Service Desk.
Thank you for doing your part to meet this state requirement and to keep UMD community members’ data secure.