UH Offers Free Cybersecurity Clinic for Small Businesses Statewide

Small business owners and sole proprietors across Hawaiʻi have one more chance to sharpen their digital defenses at no cost: the University of Hawaiʻi Maui College is hosting the third and final session in its free UH Cybersecurity Clinic series on Wednesday, March 18, 2026, from noon to 1 p.m. HST via Zoom.

The session, titled "Cybersecurity Risk Management and Vulnerability Assessments for Small Businesses," is led by David Stevens, an assistant professor of information technology and cybersecurity at UH Kapiʻolani Community College. Stevens has been direct about the stakes for small operators. "Most small businesses don't realize they're a target until it's too late," he said. "You don't need a big budget to protect yourself, but you do need to know where your risks are."

The March 18 clinic will focus on identifying critical digital assets and measuring their exposure to attack. "This session will walk you through practical, affordable steps for identifying your most critical digital assets and assessing your vulnerabilities before an attacker does," Stevens said. No professional technical background is required; organizers say only a basic understanding of the internet is needed to participate.

The series launched January 21, 2026, with a cyber hygiene session titled "Introduction to Cybersecurity: Cyber Hygiene," covering password policies and multi-factor authentication, software updates and patching, data backups and recovery, employee training, secure networks and devices, access controls, and incident response planning. The March 18 session is the third and final installment; details on the second session were not made publicly available through the series announcements.

The clinic series is funded by $1 million in grant funding and wraparound support from Google's Cybersecurity Clinics Fund, established through a collaboration between Google and the Consortium of Cybersecurity Clinics. The University of Hawaiʻi Cybersecurity Clinic is one of 15 new clinics launching at higher education institutions nationwide under that partnership.

Interested participants can register online through the UH Cybersecurity Clinic's Zoom registration page. The event is open to Hawaiʻi sole proprietors and registered small businesses statewide, including those on Kauaʻi.