But that same accessibility makes computer systems vulnerable to mischief. Stephanie Reel Problems began on June 30, when hackers broke into servers on the Homewood campus, reports Stephanie Reel , the university's chief information officer. Troubleshooters within the department later alerted security administrator Dave Bobart, who realized on July 2 that the problem was not a single intrusion but a widespread attack on many systems, she says. They were simply there to demonstrate that they could get into these servers. The intrusion caused some university systems to slow down and, notes Reel, cost a number of computer security personnel their July 4 holiday weekends.
Universities are an open environment.
There's very little restriction on what types of services you can use. In such an open environment, to properly maintain all the computers in a secure fashion would require a large army that we do not have. It's very hard to come up with a nice compromise between being open and being secure. Patient information, for example. Then we have pieces of our network in which our researchers want to be collaborative, not just within the institution but across the planet.