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The Daily Wildcat

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The Daily Wildcat

The Daily Wildcat

 

    UA officials take precautions to foil would-be hackers

    All computer services are up and running again after the recent UA hacker infiltration, but Center for Computing Information and Technology officials said they are restructuring part of their network to prevent such an incident from happening again.

    The incident, which affected the Student Union Memorial Center, the UA Libraries and Procurement and Contracting Services, is still unresolved, and CCIT wants to keep future hackers out of the systems, said Michele Norin, executive director of Center for Computing and Information Technology.

    “”We’re working on what we can learn from the incident,”” Norin said.

    The UA does not have firewalls – programs that limit access between computer networks – on all campus computers, though the central systems do, Norin said. Since the hacker incident, CCIT is asking departments to make sure all computers have firewalls in place.

    CCIT is also working on making sure computers and systems have the necessary patches that repair holes in programs and the updates that go along with them, Norin said.

    “”We are giving warnings to departments and systems around (the UA) with a series of actions they should take to secure their computers,”” Norin said.

    After the hackers accessed the systems, a rumor circulated that the hackers were from France. Although CCIT did find an IP address originating from France, the hackers could have routed the signal from anywhere in the world to go through France, said Norin.

    The University of Arizona Police Department, which has been assisted by the FBI throughout the investigation, could not comment on any further information regarding the suspects.

    The UA may never be informed of the results of the investigation because the FBI is involved, said Johnny Cruz, director of media relations for the UA.

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