Letter from George Middlemist
September 28, 2006

Dear Faculty, Staff & Students:

Following the laptop theft in March, 2006, President Jordan authorized an independent review of College policies, procedures and Information Technology (IT) systems to assure that if another theft were to occur, there would be no threat to the personal information of students, alumni and employees.

IT has been working over the summer to begin implementing many of the recommendations that arose as a result of that review. Over the next several months, we will begin a college-wide campaign to facilitate communication and education on information security. Information related to the campaign will be easily identified by a logo and tagline: "MetroProtect - Secure IT."
This logo and tagline will be used to notify you of important changes to information security policies and procedures that will affect your computing environment.

Some of the most critical security policies have already been passed by the President's Cabinet or are being discussed by the Technology Initiatives Committee (TIC). These include a password policy that requires everyone to use strong passwords and that passwords be changed every 120 days. We anticipate that the password policy will go into effect in mid-October, 2006. Additional policies under development will address session timeouts and the handling of confidential data. Finally, IT has begun the process of scanning all college laptops for confidential data, including Social Security Numbers and credit card information. IT staff will be contacting faculty and staff with laptops to schedule a time for scanning.

Detailed information about these policies and upcoming changes will be distributed through MetroProtect announcements and email. IT will notify the College community of all new policies and procedures as far in advance of their implementation as possible, and will provide education and training when needed. Watch for the MetroProtect Logo!

I want to thank you for your support and commitment as we continue to make improvements in the security of important and confidential college information.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

George Middlemist
Interim Vice President of Information Technology