Students hacked way into PAWS

A student’s schedule and personal information was tampered with last month when someone logged onto the PAWS Website using his identity.

“This is a form of computer trespassing,” said Ken Vance, director of public safety. “There are two different types of computer trespassing laws. One is a misdemeanor and the other is a felony. We prosecute on both here at this university.”

Computer trespassing, sometimes referred to as hacking, is a serious crime, punishable in most states by felony charges. Hacking started in the 60′s, mostly as a game to those who did it. The “game” was created when computers and networks were new. These hackers weren’t much of a threat, only planting simple messages into other databases. Today’s hacker is a different breed.

“Students need to do several things to protect both their information and their identity,” said Jim Wolfgang, chief information officer of the office of informational technology. “First, they should be sure that they change any default passwords that they were given. They should then change that password every 60-90 days, or sooner if they suspect their password may have been obtained. A password should include numbers, letters and characters, such as 3#m6om. They should not form any word or have any association with you. Also, if a program asks you for a hint question and an answer, make it one that people can’t guess, the harder the better.”

When the student reported that his schedule had been tampered with public safety was notified,who then assigned an officer to the case.

“This is as important as your ATM card or credit card. If you write your pin on the card, you don’t make it very difficult,” said Wolfgang.

“In addition to not changing the PIN, people write it down and leave it where other people can find it.”

GC&SU has advanced security settings on its web pages to keep things like this from happening, but there are some safety measures that are left up to the user.

“The only security problems that I can remember I started here in 1998 has been with spoofed e-mail and denial of service attacks. In both cases we found the individuals and prosecuted them,” said Wolfgang.

Identifying theft is much more likely to occur on publicly used computers due to the amount of users they get per day. The growing popularity of programs that save your personal passwords in your computer so that you don’t have to remember them also contributes to the problem.

“The (files) are kept in your machine in a file and then filled in when the program recognizes the form asking for the password. It is not a very safe idea,” said Wolfgang. “But if you do use a program like that, be sure you are using a password to protect that service. This is especially important if you have things like on-line bill paying, on-line banking and shopping programs. Unless you are 100 percent sure you are in control of your machine, I wouldn’t use them.”

Things students should remember when leaving a computer that they have been using should include making sure that you log out after you have visited a secure site. Also be wary of posting social security numbers, checking account numbers or credit card numbers in emails.

“When I am in the labs, I really don’t worry about someone getting into my email and personal information,” said Brandy Kennedy, sophomore psychology major. “When I leave the computer that I am at, I just make sure that I am logged out of any program that I might be using.”

Computer invasion is something that is on the rise in the world that we live in and people need to be aware of this when they are using privacy sensitive sites.

“Because of the sick and dangerous people in the world, we have to be a lot more careful,” said Wolfgang. “Unfortunately, this means giving up some freedoms that we currently enjoy. It will be an inconvenience in some cases, but it is better than the alternative. This all applies to faculty and staff as well. Unfortunately, we find that they are as unsecured as the students.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 21 2003. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry