Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/59881
Business schools rely on technical wizardry to keep their systems safe from virtual dragons. Knights T in Cyber Armor he world of cyberspace is both magical and dangerous, and those who would cross its borders require skill and strong defenders to keep themselves safe. As electronic data transmission and wireless Internet access become coins of the university realm, business schools need to determine how to protect themselves, and their students, from cyber warriors. Schools have always taken cursory protective measures; but these days, school administrators are donning full armor as they step onto the virtual battlefield of the Internet. This attitude is relatively recent. "Until a couple of years ago, educational institutions viewed security as a philosophical issue as opposed to a technology issue," says John Arsneault, director of network operations for Harvard Business School's IT Group in Boston, Massachusetts. "In the past, when we talked about implementing systems security or creating policies for restricting access, dis- cussion would be about how this infringed on freedom and put up barriers to collaboration. That attitude has dramatically changed. Today, the schools that have the funds to do it are implementing systems in a very similar fashion to corporations." Openness on a university campus is a thing of the past, agrees Arthur Downing, assis- tant vice president for information technology, professor and chief librarian at Baruch College in New York City. "We're moving in a direction where faculty and students are more concerned about anonymity and confidentiality. They don't want me looking over their shoulders when they're on their network. But I have to be able to make sure that anybody who's on our network using our resources at any given time is someone who should be there, and I have to know who they are." Security experts are fairly certain that administrators at most schools are covering the basics—installing firewalls, recommending anti-virus software, communicating with users, and creating backups. Even so, many could stand to put up a few more shields and deploy a few more swords in an increasingly volatile cyber environment. The Outer Defenses: Firewalls Firewalls prevent unauthorized personnel—even personnel from the rest of the universi- ty—from gaining access to the business school network. These software applications keep out users who are not authenticated and note unusual activity that signals some kind of attack. "We have people who monitor the reports of our servers and devices that watch for spikes in activity at certain points in our network," says Downing. "It can become quite expensive to invest in all this technology." BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2005 25 by Sharon Shinn illustration by Neil Brennan