the importance of security

[Scott Genung <sagenung () ILSTU EDU>]

All,

I am new to this listserv so I apologize in advance if this topic has been
discussed in the past. I am curious as to how many of you found the need to
educated your senior administrators to the need of strengthening network
defenses in response to the events of last year and what information you
provided to them that helped them truly understand the importance of this
issue.

The reason why I ask these questions is that we are dealing with some
fairly stiff opposition to a security plan we developed over the last
several months at the direction of our Associate VP for Technology (who
reports to the Provost). I am trying to find information that help us make
the case  that the world is a changed placed and that we need to enhance
security in our environment. The push back we're getting from the other VP
areas is:

- last year was just a bad year and we don't expect the same things to recur
- all of the problems we encountered were solely the due to student population
- local departments can adequately defending against these and future
security threats

In response, my VP has instructed me to only implement for now those
measures that create no impact upon the non-student population. In our case
at least, none of these beliefs are true and there is data to back this
statement up (which I am preparing). I can only assume that others have
encountered the same types of opposition. If so, how did you sell the these
changes? Are there any documents out there that are written in language
that a senior administrator could understand that would make them
appreciate the scope and gravity of this problem? I greatly appreciate any
responses.


Scott Genung
Manager of Networking Systems
Telecommunications and Network Support Services
124 Julian Hall
Illinois State University

(309)438-8731   http://www.tnss.ilstu.edu

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