MCHENRY — Like with many subjects, movies tend to make hacking seem more exciting than it actually is.

Screens full of rapidly scrolling text, giant "HACKING..." progress bars and virus-streaming connections to the White House might make for good cinema, but in real life cyber security threats tend to be much more insidious. An easily guessed password or misplaced sticky note could compromise an entire network.

Qing Yuan, director of Business and Information Technology at Garrett College, and other members of college faculty and administration are trying to help students watch out for these hidden dangers. In order to raise cyber security awareness, the college is holding a variety of events during National Cyber Security Awareness Month in October.

These events include a series of free movie nights featuring cyber security-related films and several trivia contests. Garrett is also reaching out to the community to help spread awareness.

Yuan believes that students and area residents need to take cyber security more seriously. “People are not aware of security,’’ said Yuan. “(They) just don’t think it’s a big deal. They just don’t think that it will relate to them, or that these things would happen.’’

Cathy Torok, dean of Information Technology, agreed with the importance of raising awareness. “Because of social networking and the Internet today you want to make your students aware,’’ said Torok. “Technology allows people to do so much, but there’s still a dark side to it too’’

Movies that will be shown at the weekly free movie nights include “The Net,’’ “AntiTrust’’ and “Live Free and Die Hard.’’

“All of these movies are related to information security,’’ said Yuan. While Yuan believes that the turnout at the first movie night was disappointing at around 15 people, she hopes to increase attendance to around 30 to 50 on following nights by reaching out to the student community. Last week’s movie was canceled due to a campus function.

Other events will include trivia contests in familiar Jeopardy and Pictionary formats. Students are encouraged to create teams for the contests and compete for technology prizes.

Cory Galliher can be reached at cgalliher@times-news.com.