Security

Cloud computing based services are relatively new, and you may have concerns or curiosity as to the legal issues which may have arisen in the adoption of such services by your institution, or which may arise through their operation. These might include questions about security of your personal data, the right of the cloud computing service provider to access and/or use your information, and questions about responsibility if anything goes wrong.

Users of Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Drive, or other cloud storage services are encouraged to read this guide from JISC Legal:

Digital certificates are used by many services to secure the data that flows between systems. It you are accessing any of the services in the Physics Department that can be secured in this way then you will want to download and install a certificate. Unless you have the correct and uptodate certificates installed you may receive warning messages and/or delays every time you try to connect to one of these services. Secure services include:

As viruses become more prevalent its now imperative to have virus scanning software installed on your Windows desktop systems. IT Services have Sophos for all university systems.

Please visit our Sophos Page for more details.

Policy statement, May 2004

The need to keep systems up to date with patches and anti-virus measures has become increasingly obvious. Recent experience has also shown that time is of the essence when dealing with new patches and failure to apply them leaves the whole network exposed to unacceptable risks. The question of how to ensure we address this issue in an efficient manner has been discussed at the Standing Committee for Physics Computing and the recommendations approved by the Physics Management Committee.