Crash! there goes the network and all of your personal information. That’s what would happen if the school network gets hacked.

Its not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when said, Bob Orr Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Resources and Chief Information Officer. Networks are very vulnerable places for secret information to be released. When talking with Bob Orr he said that there is always a risk of people hacking into any network. Technology today has allowed people to do things that have never done before.

Could you imagine every click backspace or even a letter can be logged? Well that happens when a hacker puts a key logger on your system. If this is put on your computer everything you have ever tried to keep secret could be shown to everyone. This would be like putting all of your information on the internet for people to see.

A computer virus is kind of like the flu. Your computer gets sick and then many times can recover, but sometimes can’t. If you get a virus it can delete all of your information or also put bad codes on your computer to use it as a host. This is when you could have millions of emails sent out from your address.

I have had a virus on my computer and I had to reformat my whole computer. It made it run very slow. What the virus does is put a process on your computer that runs in the background and you will never know it is there.

The latest virus that was a concern not only for this campus but for the whole United State was the confickr virus. DOIT was all prepared for the virus and notified the campus of what could happen and if they had any questions they could contact the help desk.

Infiltration of Server
A server is a “A computer that processes requests for HTML and other documents that are components of webpages.” according to dictionary.com. Denial services is something that goes after a server. It is kind of like a hammer that just keeps pounding until it find a way through. This is what would happen on this campus.

There are two locations of where there are servers. The main one is in the Science building and the other is in Lumbee Hall. Both of these contain racks that have updated servers for storages and keeping the network running. There is fail safe systems put in place in case on goes down there is always one running and if it as to be hacked it would shut down and the run off of the other one.

Safety
Prevention of viruses and hackers can be easy. It is a matter of blocking the intruders and helping contain the viruses. Firewalls are like blockades. They put a stop to people entering the confines of your hard drive and computer. As far as networks go there is much more that you can do. There is software that can be installed to try and prevent people from accessing it. The school network has a virtual network where it acts as if there is space but it really isn’t there. The network is also divided up into different pieces.

Bob Orr said you don’t want to give people access to the whole network it is better to just give them a piece. The main thing they want faculty, staff and students to remember is they are responsible for their own actions. They all have a part in making sure they go to secure websites and don’t give out personal information. If the network was to be hacked then it could cause major problems like webmail did.

Staff members
When asked about what kind of access people who work for DoIT he said it depend on what your position is. Students don’t get as much access as professional staff members do. He said if there was a disgruntled employee they wouldn’t be able to take down the network because they don’t have the ability to do that.

There are only certain people with passwords. He said there is no way they would be given full access. He said when hiring you always run that risk but you make sure you pick the most trustworthy people. He said he hasn’t happened here but he has seen it at other places. Even if an employee was to delete something there is always a back up of it on another server.