Educause Security Discussion mailing list archives

Re: University credentials used by third parties


From: Brad Miller <bradmiller () MAIL UND NODAK EDU>
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:46:33 -0500

In doing some research on this, I came across a number of universities that actually give students the ability to set 
up accounts for "third-party" access to their information.

https://webapps.wsu.edu/ais/sharedinfo/(S(2qhuzdzmn5scctapb2kv0mup))/Help/FAQ.aspx
http://www.depauw.edu/admin/registrar/thirdparty.asp 
http://www.uni.edu/its/is/help/parentPortalFAQ.html

It seems like these types of "third-party" accounts would be tailor-made for students to provide to Ultrinsic or other 
such "services".

~Brad

Brad Miller
IT Security Officer
Information Technology Systems and Services
University of North Dakota
(701) 777-3587
http://itsecurity.und.edu 

Paul Kendall <PKendall () ACCUDATASYSTEMS COM> 8/18/2010 9:14 AM >>>
Something most students fail to realize is that the userid/password they are provided does NOT mean the resources they 
access are theirs to do with as they like. It is permission to access a university resource, and they should never be 
divulging that access without explicit written permission from the university. Your acceptable use policy or similar 
policy probably spells that out; if so, then a very good case can be made for blocking this site.

Betting on grades? Some days I REALLY do miss 80-column punch cards...

Paul
========================================
Paul L. Kendall, PhD, CGEIT, CHP, CHSS, CHS-III, DHS-CVI, CISM, CISSP, CSSLP
PCI Qualified Security Assessor
Senior Consultant
Accudata Systems, Inc.



-----Original Message-----
From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Martin 
Manjak
Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2010 8:50 AM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU 
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] University credentials used by third parties

Many public institutions have a prohibition against commercial use of
campus resources. That should provide sufficient justification to block
any access on the part of Ultrinsic to course management systems or
other repositories of educational records.
Marty

On 8/17/2010 1:12 PM, Justin Sherenco wrote:
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 applications 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 

 

 

 


-- 
Martin Manjak
Information Security Officer
University at Albany
CISSP, GSEC, GCWN


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