Some of the university’s network services flickered on and off between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tuesday as DIT officials resolved what they called “a potential network security vulnerability.”
The emergency outage, announced to the campus community via email 40 minutes before the disruptions, was resolved by 8 p.m. with no security breaches detected, said Phyllis Dickerson Johnson, Division of Information Technology spokeswoman.
When asked for comment, Johnson and other DIT staff did not elaborate on the extent and nature of the suspected security breach, saying the division took appropriate preventative measures — including router configuration modifications — to address the problem.
“One may fault us for erring on the side of caution by alerting the community about the planned outage with very little notice,” Johnson wrote in an email. “It was necessary that the work be performed before 8 p.m.”
Email, ELMS, the university’s website and other computer systems were not impacted during the outage, she said.
“We routinely apply security patches and fixes, as is the best practice in the IT industry. There were no security breaches,” Johnson wrote. She added that Monday’s outage was not connected with any other outages or security issues.
The spotty service was the first major announced emergency disruption this semester. The last university-wide wireless network outage happened at about 4 a.m. on Dec. 2 in response to a software bug. DIT staff planned the outage and performed required system maintenance within two hours.
The university’s wireless connection also slowed down for 24 hours on May 1, barring many North Campus students from accessing the Internet, according to a previous Diamondback report.
With about 4,100 access points, the university’s network is among the largest of any national public research university. In an effort to improve Internet experience, DIT has been pushing for students and faculty to use the university’s secure service, “umd-secure.” But more than 70 percent of the 20,814 wireless users on the campus log onto the Internet through “umd,” while only 26.8 percent use “umd-secure.”
The division has also been upgrading university wireless connections through the Network Refresh Project. Launched three-and-a-half years ago, the $61 million project — financed by student technology fees, data-user services, and university central funds — improved 90 of 250 building connections by September.
Full-time students pay a $132 technology fee per semester to improve campus computers systems.
“We are routinely working to strengthen the university’s computing systems. It is a never-ending battle to keep computing systems secure,” Johnson said.
newsumdbk@gmail.com
