Guest Blogger: 5 Key Issues in IT Security

Here’s another installment from our guest blogger, Tracy Mitrano.

For a number of years now, college technology leaders have identified security as one of the top five concerns for an IT organization, according to surveys by Educause. As a policy director I have certainly felt the impact of that concern. I started my position here at Cornell in April of 2001. At almost exactly the same time, the number of information-technology security incidents began to go through the proverbial roof. The proliferation of viruses and the availability of “script kiddies” — free software that can be used by non-programmers to hack into computers — were the main problems.

Consequently, my task as policy director was to focus on a suite of security policies. When Steve Schuster came on board here two years later as director of IT security, he and I worked together to create the security side of what we now call the Information Technology Policy Framework.

In today’s vlog, I talk with Steve about what he sees as the top five security issues facing the campus today.

Tracy Mitrano, our January guest blogger, is director of information-technology policy in Cornell University’s Office of Information Technologies, where she also directs the computer policy and law program.