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IT Security at the University of Maryland Baltimore
IT Security Strategy
Our campus has seven schools and three large affiliated healthcare operations connected to a common network infrastructure. Separate IT groups fulfilled the needs of each organization, school or unit. Conflicting requirements fostered differing practices and discouraged adoption of uniform policies. Security was uneven and sometimes nonexistent. Failure of one unit's security measures jeopardized the security of the others. Spurred in 2002 by federal regulations, mounting computer security threats, and a growing number of users who worked across organizational boundaries, IT groups began to collaborate. First, we coordinated computer support among four help desk centers. This experience taught us that multi-organization coordination and collaboration could work in our decentralized environment. Help desk data also indicated that practices in one organization frequently led to computer problems in another. This made us find ways to improve cross-organization communication among network managers, technical director and CIOs. Soon, we recognized the benefits of mutually confronting common threats, complying with the same regulations and not reduce workforce productivity. This led us to common security solutions. Working slowly, we agreed to a set of common practices. We are now codifying them into policies and procedures that can be applied equally across all organizations.