Page 36 - Campus Security & Life Safety, March/April 2020

Best Practices
“The first step towards a Csolution is awareness.”
ampus IT managers are responsible for managing their school’s tech stack. Worries vary. Are all the lap- tops correctly setup? Is the network able to handle the load? Is the fire-
wall activated? Unfortunately, there are a ton of security variables the IT team cannot con- trol, but require policies and guidelines for the institution’s attendees.
You will need to consider what happens when an infected device comes into the school. How can a student’s laptop be secured when he comes back to college? How can the fallout from a security-unaware teacher be contained?
The first step towards a solution is aware- ness. Schools, universities and academic
institutions where students and faculty can access computers and mobiles (both institu- tional and personal) need to share guidelines and best practices for safe IoT device usage on campus networks.
Many schools and colleges share this on their website as part of their cyber security basics or tips & best practices for cybersecu- rity in-campus. We took a look at a handful of these campus guides and put together a quick walkthrough on the best practices for creating these guidelines.
Remember, the objective here is to secure your institution’s attendees and faculty’s data and devices as well as your school’s networks from the harms these rogue devices can generate.
Campus Cybersecurity Guides
A good example of a comprehensive cyber security guide is the one published by the
University of Northern Colorado. This online tutorial summarizes the cybersecurity basics every student should follow to make their personal computer more secure.
The UNC guide includes a cybersecurity overview, student resources and security rec- ommendations. It advises students to keep a clean machine, protect their personal infor- mation, connect to the Internet with care and to be a good online citizen.
A similar, but more expansive approach, is taken in the Cybersecurity Tips & Best Prac- tices Guide from the University of California at Berkeley Information Security Office. Divided into two sections – Basics for Secur- ing Your Data and Data Responsibilities and Guidelines — the Berkeley Guide provides resources for cybersecurity awareness and best practices on a variety of topics.
The first section –Preventing Laptop Theft to Security Basics: 101 to Netiquette and
36 campuslifesecurity.com | MARCH/APRIL 2020