Educause Security Discussion mailing list archives

Re: University credentials used by third parties


From: Sam Hooker <samuel.hooker () UVM EDU>
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:43:00 -0400


This, too, is charming:

    http://www.ultrinsic.com/grade_insurance.html


-sth

-- 
Sam Hooker | samuel.hooker () uvm edu
Systems Architecture and Administration
Enterprise Technology Services
The University of Vermont


On 20100817 14:19 , Bob Bayn wrote:
No support from this quarter either.  But it does look like Ultrinsic.com does need to make arrangements for each 
individual school to automate the process of using the student-provided credentials to get to the schedules and 
grades.  Now, I wonder if those individual arrangements include individual approval from each school.  The list of 
schools is currently:

American University (undergraduate)
Boston College (undergraduate)
Boston University (undergraduate)
Brigham Young University (undergraduate)
Columbia University (undergraduate)
CUNY Queens College (undergraduate)
Duke University (undergraduate)

George Washington University (undergraduate
Georgetown University (undergraduate)
Harvard University (undergraduate)
Howard University (undergraduate)
Indiana University-Bloomington (undergraduate)
Massachussets Institute of Technology (undergraduate)
Michigan State University (undergraduate)
North Carolina State University (undergraduate)
NYU (undergraduate)

Pennsylvania State University (undergraduate)
Princeton University (undergraduate)
Rutgers University (undergraduate)
St. Johns University (undergraduate)
Stanford University (undergraduate)
SUNY Binghamton (undergraduate)
Syracuse University (undergraduate)
Texas A&M University (undergraduate)

Texas Tech University (undergraduate)
University of California-Berkeley (undergraduate)
University of California-Los Angeles (undergraduate)
University of Conneticut (undergraduate)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (undergraduate)
University of North Carolina (undergraduate)
University of Pennsylvania (undergraduate)
University of Pittsburgh (undergraduate)
University of Southern California (undergraduate)

University of Texas-Austin (undergraduate)
University of Wisconsin-Madison (undergraduate)
Wake Forest University (undergraduate)

Nope, I doubt those are all the results of explicit collaborations with each school's administration.  So, you may 
have to block Ultrinsic if they can get any of your student credentials and snoop around to figure out how to extract 
the data they need.


Bob Bayn        (435)797-2396      Security Team coordinator
             http://tinyurl.com/I-Need-a-Kidney
Office of Information Technology   at  Utah State University
________________________________________
From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Walter 
Petruska [wpetruska () USFCA EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 12:06 PM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] University credentials used by third parties

I find this completely unacceptable, and fair game for complaint and for blocking.

Any outrage/shock elsewhere?


Walter E. Petruska,  CISSP, CISA, CGEIT
USF Information Security Officer

University of San Francisco
Lone Mountain North - 226
2130 Fulton Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
ITS Help Desk Phone: 415-422-6668
Fax: 415-422-6719



From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () 
LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>] On Behalf Of Justin Sherenco
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 10:13 AM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>
Subject: [SECURITY] University credentials used by third parties

Hello,
Recently a local on-line news site 
(http://www.annarbor.com/news/university-of-michigan-students-can-wager-on-grades-via-website/) wrote an article 
about a new website that lets students bet on their own grades.  The betting aspect aside I was intrigued by this 
line “they have to register and upload their schedules to grant the site access to school records.”  To investigate 
further I went through the account set up process and found that the student has the option to allow the site to 
automatically download their student records (see attached ultinsic2.jpg).  It actually asks for their academic user 
name and password!  EMU is currently not on their list of supported schools but they mention will be rolling out 
nationally.  We have policies and standards in place that say don’t give out you password and in my opinion giving 
credentials to this site would violate them.  Are there any other Universities investigating the use of usernames and 
passwords used by third party web 
a!
 pplications not sanctioned by the University?  Any talk on actually blocking a site like this from automatically 
logging in (system stability/privacy/security issues?) or is this more of users choice?


Regards,
Justin

-------------------------------------
Justin Sherenco, CISSP
Easten Michigan University
Security Analyst
http://it.emich.edu/security


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