Daily Egyptian Sp03
Spring 2003
Homeland Defense Plan Stresses Computer Security
Brendan Collier
Daily EgyptianThe White House introduced a homeland security plan Friday to secure cyberspace from potential terrorist attacks. Amid talk of college campuses' vulnerability to terrorist attacks, the new plan calls on universities to exercise more computer vigilance.
The plan recommends that institutions of higher education beef up firewall protection and develop training programs in which college students could learn to protect their computers from potential attacks.
Jerry Looft, administrative assistant at Information Technology, said SIUC has had network security problems in the past, mostly stemming from students' use of music and movie swapping programs. The inherent problem with these programs is that they are set up to give and receive files from almost any user, he said.
For instance, Looft said that one time the Army traced missing files from an investigation to SIUC. As it turned out, he said, a hacker may have used an SIUC student's computer as a link in a chain leading to the Army's computer system.
"People from the outside can come in and look around," Looft said. "Then they can go from one machine to another."
To make their computers less vulnerable to hacker attacks, Looft recommends that students turn off their computers when they're not using them, and disable any Internet or network features that they don't need. Additionally, he said that certain operating systems have security features that can be enabled, and aftermarket firewall programs can also make the systems more secure.
The White House plan stated that public-use computers such as those in the Morris Library and campus labs are of particular importance to cyberspace security. The concern expressed in the White House document is over the anonymity of public computers; that they can be used by hackers to access important networks without identifying the user.
"We have a big problem on campus with a lack of a verification process," Looft said.
Looft said that some of the campus' labs have changed their systems to require users to log on and log off using a Keberos ID. This enables network administrators to keep record of who was on what computer at what time. This makes it more likely that the culprit of a computer-hacking event will be caught.
Looft said he would like to see all the computer labs on campus move to this more secure method. Morris Library, which does not require the use of logins, is one of the places Looft would like to see changed to the password method. A library network representative was unable to be contacted by press time.
Looft explained that the login system does have some privacy concerns. He explained that there is no way to monitor what a person does on a computer, or what websites they visit while logged on under the school's system.
Wan Kamal Wan Napi, swing shift supervisor of the Computer Learning Center at Faner Hall, said that he has not seen any troubles with the extra precaution. The user account, which also provides students with an e-mail address, takes only a matter of seconds to create, he said.
The University currently offers no formal training for students to learn the ins and outs of secure network usage, but students can direct their questions to their network administrators, or the student technicians at the campus labs.
Reporter Brendan Collier can be reached at bcollier@dailyegyptian.com
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Last update: Thursday, February 20, 2003 at 4:57:54 AM
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