Although the rapid growth of legitimate new uses of the Internet is quite welcomed, this growth has at the same time increased the opportunities and temptations for misuse of the Internet resource. Security breaches at highly visible computing sites have become commonplace today, and universities are favorite targets for attacks. Critical university computing resources, such as research, patient care, and student data, are at risk, and university computing devices are being commandeered by cybercriminals to launch attacks on corporations and other entities outside the university. These steps are effective, however, only if they are taken for all devices on the University of Virginia's network. Key security gaps that need to be closed may vary depending upon the type of device.
Some examples follow.
All device owners should ensure passwords used on their devices are not easily guessable by attackers. Owners of personal computers should install and run anti-virus software on these devices and apply updates from the software vendor as they become available. Owners of personal computers and servers should apply security-related updates to the operating system running on their devices as these updates become available from operating system vendors. Examples of a few operating systems found at UVa are Windows 2000, Windows NT, and Red Hat Linux. Owners of UNIX and Linux servers should switch off unneeded services to eliminate the risk of these being exploited.