By COLBY BERMEL

The Principia Pilot

October 2012

 

Cybersecurity is one of the most important issues of our time. The College community, country and world are all connected via the Internet and electrical grids, and any disruption in these – whether it be caused by accident, natural disaster or malicious attack – can result in damage done to an individual, a family, a corporation, the government or quite possibly the entire country.

 

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2005 to 2007, cited cybersecurity as the primary national security challenge facing the U.S. in a talk on campus Sept. 21. "We are truly vulnerable," he said in describing how cyberweapons are used thousands of times a day and how 15,000 new viruses are created every week.

 

However, citizens can do their part, as promoted by the Department of Homeland Security this October in its National Cyber Security Awareness Month. This month's theme is "Our Shared Responsibility," which includes the corollary of achieving responsibility together, or "ACT."

 

Working to stay safe online is also being encouraged by Principia's Computer and Information Services (CIS) department, which is rolling out several short- and long-term initiatives to help our community in cyberspace.

 

Chris Davis, the CIS security director, said that he has been publishing a newsletter on Watercooler, Principia's internal communications channel for faculty and staff. The first of these posts detailed how to select strong passwords, among other topics. Davis also plans to incorporate the points of National Cyber Security Awareness Month in future messages.

 

Davis also mentioned a five-year plan, in which he said there are "probably more projects than there is time or money." Despite these obstacles, the department will continue to conduct annual penetration tests to evaluate the network's security, along with collecting logs that will detail patterns of "negative" behavior.

 

According to Richard Booth, Principia's chief technology officer, the College in earlier years required students, faculty and staff to change their passwords every 90 days. However, this proved to be a logitical mess: people forgetting their passwords and abroad participants not having Internet access were some of the difficulties faced. Booth described this project as "causing more problems than it solved."

 

Although passwords weren't a significant problem, there have been some serious incidents at Principia. In 2004, many computers on campus were affected by the Welchia worm, which also proliferated nationwide, but it was quickly fixed. And just before this academic year, a professor was the victim of a phishing scam that posed as a McAfee antivirus download link, which was resolved as well.

 

Nevertheless, Booth said that overall, there have been "very few security incidents" thanks to the complimentary antivirus software provided to students, faculty and staff.

 

Junior Adam Rolph, a computer science major, quipped that the most secure computer a person can have is one that's not plugged in. While many of us can't be away from Facebook for five minutes, we will inevitably be on our computers, so we might as well follow the guidance of DHS and CIS to be safe online.