Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Features
Security
11/29/2005
101 BEST PRACTICES SECURITY
Security is the opener of our special 101 Best Practices guide for this December 2005. Scan the 34 items that follow in this section to find issues and challenges that your college, university, or system is facing right now. In a glance, you’ll find answers or leads to solutions that will help you get your own initiative off the ground, or remove roadblocks in your way. Use the links provided to find more in-depth information in original articles and white papers, or on Web sites. Identity theft, risk assessment, authentication and countering spyware are just a start.
- 1
-
Hack Job
In
his April 2005 Campus Technology feature on security technology,
senior contributing editor Matt Villano suggested that the best way to avoid
security breaches might be to pay for them: 'In the last two years, [hack]
attacks have occurred at the University of Georgia, the
University of Texas at Austin, the University of
Missouri-Kansas City, the University of California-San
Diego, and the University of California-Berkeley,
to name a few. In all of these cases, the hackers exploited vulnerabilities
in technology set up to foster collaboration and the free exchange of information.
Across the board, the hackers scored sensitive information, putting users
at risk. These cases may not represent the norm across North America, but
increasingly, US schools are feeling the need to step up security measures
to protect their users from invasions of this kind. Most schools take a
traditional approach, purchasing the latest and greatest Intrusion Prevention
System (IPS) technology from vendors that serve the corporate world...'
A plethora of security products exist, and on many campuses you'll find
a mixture of Intrusion Detection Prevention (IDP), Secure Socket Layer (SSL),
and Virtual Private Network (VPN) technologies, in products such as the
FortiGate line from
Fortinet, and
the REM Security management console from eEye
Digital Security. Vendors such as Symantec,
Check Point Software
Technologies, and Cisco
Systems have also unveiled products that draw from these technologies.
Villano points out that some schools use a multi-pronged strategy, '...combining
off-the-shelf tools with proprietary measures, to keep things safe. And
some of these trailblazing schools champion a strategy that employs the
services of 'ethical hackers' to poke around a network to find vulnerabilities
for system administrators to fix.' Read
more
Recommended Reading
- Sun, Stanford Working To Archive History
In May in San Francisco, experts from leading universities, libraries, and research institutions around the world met as part of an ongoing effort to address a pressing issue: archiving the world's history, right up to today.
- The Quilt Coalition Rolls Out XO Communications for High-Capacity Network Services
The Quilt, a coalition of 28 regional network organizations, has added XO Communications Services to its authorized vendor list. The Quilt represents 200 universities and thousands of other educational institutions across the United States. With this new relationship, Quilt members can purchase XO's high-speed IP transit and network transport services at competitive rates.
- Wimba Classroom 5.2 Expands Classroom Capture Support, Adds MP3 Downloads
At the NECC 2008 conference in Texas this week, Wimba launched a new version of Wimba Classroom, the virtual classroom component of the company's Collaboration Suite. The new 5.2 release expands options for classroom capture and adds a variety of other functional and ease of use features.
- Automation Chimera: Education Is Not Management
The lure of automating workflow online so human intervention is minimized is continually reinforced in the minds of higher education administrators by examples of automated campus systems such as financials, student information systems, and other enterprise systems. But what's good for management is not always good for learning.
- Cognos Releases BI Software for Linux-based IBM System z Mainframe
Cognos, which IBM acquired in January, has released an update to its business intelligence software that will run on the Linux operating system on IBM System z mainframes. IBM Cognos 8 BI was being developed by the two companies prior to the acquisition, but assimilation of Cognos into IBM accelerated development.
- Facebook and Collegiality: A Serendipitous Social Niche
Facebook is a way to greet a colleague as if she or he is on your own campus: a wave at a distance, a hello at the corner burrito place, a honk as you both leave the campus parking lot. Informal collegiality has been extended over the miles.
- Sun, Stanford Working To Archive History
