21 Sep 2009
Today, the progress of information technologies stimulated their wide implementation in different spheres of social life. At the same time, new information technologies are currently widely implemented in education, especially in distant learning. However, the effective use of new information technologies confronts a number of problems, among which it is possible to single out the problem of reliability of information systems of colleges and Universities as one of the major problems. In addition, often students can face a problem of control of students’ enrollment. In such a way, it is obvious that numerous problems accompanying the introduction of new information technologies and development of information systems are very important and can prevent them from effective functioning if colleges and Universities fail to improve the reliability of and control over their information systems.
In this respect, it is possible to recommend implementation of information technologies which can decrease the risk of errors in the information system and increase its reliability. However, it is important to understand that the problem of control over the students’ enrollment as well as the problem of the information system’s security and reliability and its inappropriate use is not problems of the University and students, but they are serious problems which refer to the entire network used by the University and students. This is why, speaking about the security of information system of the University or college, it is important to speak about the security of its network and clear rules of its usage.
First of all, it should be said that the network of a college or University can be protected and secured effectively with the help of an effective protection system. At this point, it is possible to recommend the creation of the Computing Service Center with the help of which it is possible to control the functioning of the network and react on any attempts of intrusion or information breaches. At the same time, such a center can help process data and information effectively preventing the risk of students’ failure in being enrolled in the classes they request. In addition, it is important to employ the network based Intrusion Protection System which will enhance the reliability and security of the network.
Basically, the introduction of the Computing Service Center and the Intrusion Protection System can be focused on major directions in which the improvement of the information system are needed: intelligent port scanning detection; behavior-based denial of service protection; brute force protection for central servers and application servers; multiple segments support; and programmable API for dynamic policy management.
The intelligent port scanning detection contributes to the detection and blocking threats functionality, after further analysis with the help of horizontal port scanning, which implies scanning for the same port for the whole subnet range, and slow and very slow port scanning, which implies scanning several hosts in every five minutes for the whole day and a complete class B network scanning within two weeks (Andrew, 2003).
Furthermore, the behavior-based denial of service protection can provide more effective protection than a traditional signature-based attack detection mechanism. The behavior-based denial of service concerns with other factors such as the network ports, traffic detection, protocol handshaking information, which are put together to conclude a network attack. In this respect, it is possible to recommend implementing self-learning and adaptive components, such as detection module, attack footprints lookup module, and blocking module.
Brute force protection for central servers and application servers provide server resources protection and application protection. To protect server resources it is possible to apply SYN packet protection module, connection limit module, and bandwidth management module. To protect application, it is possible to use signature-based protection, which includes brute force password guess, buffer overflow, SQL injection, cross-site scripting (Lucas and Baroudi, 2002).
As for programmable API for dynamic policy management, it should be said that it allows user to update the IPS policy dynamically (Bloch, Peigneur and Segev, 2000). For instance, if the mail server detects that some hosts are sending spam mails to the Internet, the administrator can make use of the programmable API to update the IPS policy automatically to block the Internet access of the host.
Finally, speaking about the appropriate use of the network, it is important to develop clear and understandable policies which all users of the network should follow. This means that students as well as educators should be informed on the basic rules of using the network and they should sign an agreement which proves that they agree with these rules. In such a way, they will be obliged to follow these rules. Otherwise, they will be denied of access to the network. At this point, it is also important to inform users of the system of penalties for the violation of the rules.
Thus, in conclusion, it is important to stress the significance of the reliability of a college or University information system. Students should be able to use this system effectively, but they should not violated rules established by the college or University. In addition, it is important to protect the information system to avoid information breaches and errors.
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