HIGH EDUCATION BELIEVES NETWORKS ARE MORE SECURE NOW.

Security issues continue to concern the people who run higher education computer and communications networks, but despite their need to remain constantly on guard, they believe their networks are secure and that they are safer now than in the past.

These are some of the key findings in the latest member survey by ACUTA, the Association for Information Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education, which surveyed members attending its recent Annual Conference in Atlanta.

The survey asked members to identify the threats that most concern them and what they are doing in response, as well as to grade their own networks' security. Survey respondents, representing scores of college and universities in the U.S. and Canada, gave their networks a strong aggregate ranking of 3.7 on a scale of 1 (poor security) to 5 (best security).

Eighty-four percent of respondents said they believe their campus networks are more secure now than five years ago, with six percent feeling less secure, and the remainder seeing no change. Some have learned their security lessons the hard way. Significant security breaches were reported by 47 percent of respondents, and of those who were hit, 71 percent said the damage was at least limited to only minor exposure of confidential information, along with some inevitable public embarrassment.

The area of their networks that the largest percentage of respondents consider most vulnerable is the usage of mobile devices. Thirty-five percent of respondents see these devices as a weak link in their security chain. Other top vulnerabilities are internal controls (named by 30 percent of respondents), student downloads (29 percent), student hackers (23 percent) and Internet access (20 percent).

The most common approach to dealing with security threats is education of students and staff, which 58 percent of respondents said they are doing. Tightening internal controls and addressing problems through new and improved systems were strategies each named by 44 percent of respondents.

Asked to consider nine specific threats or weaknesses, respondents ranked them in this order, based on what they view as their comparative danger: 1) viruses and malware; 2) ...