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A new online course will help prevent a repeat of Ohio University's past data-security problems, OU Information Technology officials say. Available on Blackboard to staff and faculty, the course was created by OU's own technology staff and will focus on the identifying, collecting, communicating, storing and disposing of sensitive information, said Sean O'Malley, communications manager for the IT department. He also said in a written statement that, though the program may eventually be mandatory for all employees, it is currently optional. O'Malley added that simple carelessness and not recognizing sensitive information are the most common problems. Among these problems, O'Malley listed using sensitive information such as social security numbers when safer alternatives like OAK and PID numbers are available, O'Malley said. He added that many employees do not differentiate between disposable and permanent media such as e-mails, which he said can create numerous copies of sensitive information that are difficult to permanently destroy. A lot of this stuff is common sense once you've thought about it he said. In 2005 and 2006 a string of breaches exposed the personal information of hundreds of thousands of students, alumni and donors to hackers and cost the university millions both in damages and in upgrading network security. Soon after these breaches, OU hired four IT consultants, costing $85,440, to review its network security. The consultants recommended replacing OU's top network management. More recently, a hard drive containing personal information of 38 individuals was stolen from the OU-Chillicothe campus in December of last year. |
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Frank Thomas
