University Wire
09-08-2004
(The Greyhound) (U-WIRE) BALTIMORE -- This past summer, technology services employees made upgrades and other improvements to the college's network and various connections around campus, focusing mainly on the west side.
Students will now have to install RezNet software, designed to protect Loyola College-Maryland's systems, before connecting to the network.
Many hubs, which allow students in residence halls to connect to the Internet through Loyola's central servers, were upgraded to create faster and more individual controls.
Internet connections are now at a speed of 45 megabytes per second, which is almost double last year's bandwidth of 25 megabytes.
The upgrades have created "more visibility to the network to be able to see if there's a computer that's creating some malicious traffic," in addition to higher speeds, according to Jason Youngers of Network Services.
The emphasis on a higher level of transparency comes as a direct response to the viruses of last August and September.
"There was so much traffic on the network from viruses ... that we were shutting off entire subnets. Whole dorms were flooded by a couple of machines," said security analyst Dave Opitz.
Last year, Technology Services handed out a CD to students that included Norton AntiVirus plus a tool to remove the parasitic Blaster worm. The installation of the CD was optional.
This year Loyola requires students to install its RezNet CD in order to connect to the Internet.
Last Friday, only three freshmen arriving on campus had difficulty installing the software. These problems were due to either outdated operating systems or programs that conflicted with the software.
The RezNet software is designed to provide protection against viruses in three main areas.
First, RezNet automatically downloads Windows software patches, which fix bugs included with the original operating system software that were not found during initial testing.
Second, RezNet provides users with a free version of Symantec AntiVirus, designed to replace outdated antivirus software. That software then reports virus information to the main antivirus server on the network, which will allow for faster location and diagnosis of viruses on a host computer.
Finally, the RezNet CD includes Loy-Connect, software that individually authenticates users to the network using their username and Groupwise password. X-Boxes and Playstation 2's will also be able to connect to the internet as long as the machines are reported to the tech service center. Personal wireless routers, however, are not supported with Loy-Connect.
"We're not watching where you're web surfing, and we're not reading your e-mails," Optiz said.
The Loy-Connect authentication software only allows tech services to view the username and IP address from the login client.
RezNet software is designed for PC's that use Windows 98 or later. Mac software is currently in its testing phase.
There will probably not be a version released for Linux users due to the technical variations in each Linux platform.
"Ninety-nine percent of the viruses are for Windows, so there is less of a risk for a Mac or Linux user," Opitz said.
Over this past summer, all on-campus computers owned by Loyola were equipped with the most recent software. This ensures that all computers are up to date with their antivirus and operating system software.
Youngers points out that protecting the network and user computers on such a large scale is essentially a new way of thinking that has taken place over the past year since the infection with the viruses of last summer.
"This year I think we will fare much better than a lot of schools," he said, "I think anybody around here would think that this is an overwhelming success, and so far that's been the case."
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