(MSPAlliance) - Friday, April 28, 2006 - UC-Berkeley is known for technological innovations, such as Unix, Internet Domain Name and Smart Dust. However, focus has shifted from the elite university's technical brilliance to the bad publicity associated two major security breaches over the past three years.
The first breach in October 2004 involved a compromised database of < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />California residents, and the university reported a breach involving a stolen laptop containing graduate records last September. In an interview with Network World, UC-Berkeley's Communication and Network Services director Clifford Frost described some of the rudimentary IT security strategies of the university.
Every networked device has its operating system periodically updated and patched, while old operating systems, such as Windows 95 or those that control microscopes, must be firewalled, Frost said. Frost listed physical infrastructure difficulties with old buildings and distributed storage networks as primary challenges facing his department today.
After the breaches, Frost said the university stepped up the implementation of encryption, providing more auditing processes to remove sensitive information and encrypt such information that is necessary to carry out university processes.
