How to Avoid Losing Your Network Access

In an ongoing effort to provide a secure computing environment for the campus community, Computing Services takes a proactive approach to protect the network from system attacks, viruses, and abuse.

What Computing Services Does to Protect the Network

To reduce threats to the network, we review computing security alerts and subscribe to security mailing lists to receive the latest notices of viruses, worms, or system attacks.  

We routinely scan the network looking for specific vulnerabilities on networked machines. By doing this, we can quickly inform the machine owner that they are at risk of a system attack.  If your machine is found to be compromised, network access may be temporarily interrupted to prevent the problem from spreading to other machines.  

Network traffic patterns are also monitored for signs of unusual activity. By doing this we can identify machines that may have become unknowingly compromised, infected, or that are otherwise in violation of the Carnegie Mellon Computing Policy.

If your machine is found to be in violation of the Computing Policy, network access can be suspended. Notification of any problem found with a registered machine will always be made via e-mail and will always be sent from abuse@andrew.cmu.edu.  

What You Must Do to Protect your Machine

If you receive email from abuse@andrew.cmu.edu notifying you of a problem, you must act promptly.

If your machine is found to be vulnerable to a system attack, the e-mail message will include the source of the problem, detailed steps of what you have to do to correct it and, if applicable, links to any fix or patch that you may need to apply.

To avoid losing your network access you must complete the steps within the time frame allowed. If your machine has been removed from the network already, you must first correct the problem and then re-register your machine through Netreg. 

If you’ve violated the Computing Policy, an e-mail may be sent warning you of the violation. However, if the violation is severe, your machine may be removed from the network without prior warning.

To avoid any problems, please review the list of policy and guideline violations noted under Related Topics.

How to Guard Against System Attacks and Vulnerabilities

• To ensure that your machine is protected, read and follow the Secuity documentation.
• Open, read and quickly complete the instructions provided in any e-mails sent by abuse@andrew.cmu.edu 
• To receive the latest security and virus alerts, subscribe to either of the following: 
  • Subscribe to the compserv-security mailing list. For help with subscribing see Getting News.
    
  • Access the Carnegie Mellon Web Portal at https://my.cmu.edu/ and configure the portal for Computing Services Headline News. For help with configuring see Getting News.
    

Comply with the Computing Policy and Guidelines

Review and abide by the Computing Policy and Guidelines. In the event that your machine was unknowingly compromised, be sure to open, read, and quickly complete the steps provided in any e-mails sent by abuse@andrew.cmu.edu.