The department of information technology (IT) required students upon arrival to campus to register their computers with the department before they could access the Internet or the network itself.
During the summer, students received an e-mail from Desktop Computing Specialist Maura Fennelly instructing them that they would need to register their computers in order to gain network access. The registration served as a safety measure at the time of registration, and IT staff hopes it will continue to help keep students' computers safe. "Students computers were scanned when they registered to check and see if the computers are patched," said Fennelly. "The computers had to be patched to get on the network."
Since the computers are all registered, if any computer becomes infected with a virus, IT will have an easy time detecting and treating the virus. "When computers are registered we can monitor if they have a virus and we can quickly contact students," said Fennelly. "It helps us help students clean up their computers more quickly."
Interim Director of Information Technology Tom Warger agreed that requiring registration has made the network safer this year than it has been in recent years. "The effectiveness of registering has been good," he said. "We've been able to detect network disruptions … that last year would have brought the network to a crawl."
Campus computers are now separated into four categories to prevent the spread of viruses, according to Warger. Students, faculty, general computers and the core network all have their own smaller networks.
"The ports in student dormitories are on their own plans to provide isolation between student computers and the rest of the network," said Co-Director of Systems and Networks John Manly. "As a result, we can block all inbound connections directly to student machines to make it less likely for hackers to reach a computer." Manly added that these changes should not affect everyday usage.
The segmentation will also reduce the spread of problems within the network. "[The isolation] will work as containment zones to catch anything that spreads faster than we can catch it," said Warger.