Network Management and Security

In the information age in which we live, management of network resources and the security of the UB network are fundamental to the pursuit of the UB goals of academic excellence, increasing research activities and serving the needs of the surrounding schools. Network resources, accepted network behavior and their associated policies are defined as follows:

Bandwidth :.

Bandwidth, or the transmission capacity, of our network hardware is a finite resource all electronic information on our network must share. This information can be referred to as network traffic and organized into different traffic queues. Each network switch and router is configured with a priority associated with each traffic queue. These rules are maintained in a central server within MIS and distributed to all switches and routers on the UB network. MIS system and network administrator reserves the right to develop the rules governing these priorities based on the relative importance of different applications, users, and groups in conjunction with available resources.

Hacking for Malicious Purposes :.

Hacking is the interference with or unauthorized access to any computer or computer network. This may or may not reflect malicious intent. Specific examples of ‘malicious hacking’ include:

Any attempt to gain root or system administrator privileges on any UB network machine or equipment, without permission.

1. Any attempt to gain unauthorized access to files, equipment or accounts.
2. Any attempt to do anything that result in the interruption of any service to UB users.
3. Any use of chat robots.
4. Any attempted use of password cracking software.
5. Circumventing MIS approved firewalls.
6. Specific software attacks, including 'Smurf Attacks' and 'Ping of Death'.
7. Any attempt to access or change system files, without permission.
8. Any unauthorized attempt to store user files outside their predefined areas.
9. Installation or attempted use of programs or software of any type, without permission.
10. Any attempt to do the above mentioned items through the UB network, even if the attempt is aimed outside our network.

Malicious hacking may compromise system availability, data integrity or both. UB will, to the fullest extent allowed by law, seek legal action against any individual(s), organization(s) and/or company(s) that directly or indirectly utilizes our network (or causes it to be used) for any practice that we consider to be hacking with malicious intent.

Anonymous File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Sites :.

All users intending to implement anonymous FTP on any workstation or server must notify MIS of this intention. Users must not offer licensed or illegal software on their site. Users must not allow anonymous users connecting to their site write access. Any FTP site on the UB network found in non-compliance with these restrictions will be disconnected immediately.

Firewalls :.

Firewalls are software barriers to unsolicited or malicious network activity as well as being a barrier to unauthorized users of a network. MIS maintains its own firewall as an added protection against malicious use of our network. Personal firewalls must be approved by MIS system/network administrator in writing for individual servers and/or workstations. It must be shown that he will not interfere with overall network function and performance as determined by MIS.