Data Security

Data security is protection of data from corruption, unauthorised access and deletion.

There are many threats to your computer data, both internal and external to the University.  Some of the common threats include virus attack, hacking, accidental data deletion, natural disaster, malware, unauthorised access, identity theft, and physical computer damage or failure.

Strategies to maintain the safety and integrity of your data include:

• Antivirus software
• Operating system and application patches and updates
• File backup

As part of the on campus Managed Operating Environment (MOE) for University owned computers, IT Services provides the following security services to support data protection.

• the latest antivirus software (Sophos) which includes malware protection configured to automatically update networked computers 
• centralised authentication and authorisation services, which proves your identity and areas you can acces
• operating system patches as well as regular updates to software, which are deployed to our fleet of computers as soon as practical following their release and testing on our network has been completed
• data storage areas and utilities to facilitate data backup

To ensure these strategies are most effective, users should also take responsibility for their data security by:

• regularly backing up data
• locking workstations when leaving them unattended (using ctrl-alt-del command)
• safeguard passwords
• use strong passwords
• avoid opening email attachments form unknown sources
• restarting your computer when prompted following an automatic update
• report any suspicious activity to the 17triplezero IT Service Desk