A BYTE FOR SCHOOL BUDGETS

ASEE Prism, Mar 2005 by Grose, Thomas

SECURITY

INFORMATION technology may be revolutionizing the way higher education is delivered and consumed, and how research is conducted, but the cost of keeping campus computer systems secure is taking bigger chunks out of college budgets. That's the key finding of a recent survey of 501 colleges and universities by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Nearly 60 percent reported that IT securiff costs required a higher percentage of spending in 2004 than in 2003. Fully 55 percent say they now have full-time staff devoted to computer security, though for most of these schools, that "staff" is made up of one person.

The results of the survey show that there's a need for more security measures. Every college that responded reported virus and/or worm attacks, and 73 percent said such attacks increased last year. Denial-of-service attacks affected 53 percent of respondents, while 41 percent reported that their systems had been compromised. Website vandals hit 22 percent of the schools, and 14 percent reported unauthorized access to student data. Nearly 90 percent of the schools had taken action against students for irresponsible online behavior.

Schools are fighting back. All have invested in antivirus software; 98 percent have firewalls; 96 percent have spam filters; 88 percent have software to combat spyware; and 83 percent use virtual private networks. So far, only 28 percent of the schools are making use of cutting-edge biometric security systems. -TG