Upcoming Scan for Level 1 Protected Data

September 16, 2014

At HSU, we care about protecting personal information.

Three years ago, in partnership with the entire campus, ITS undertook an initiative using Identity Finder software to uncover and eliminate the unnecessary storage of social security and credit card numbers from local hard drives and network shares. A number of users who were sure their computers contained no such confidential data were surprised to learn that, actually, they did. The result was a 97% reduction in the volume - which translates to vulnerability - of this personally identifiable information (PII) being stored across campus, leaving it only in those locations where our business processes really need it.

It’s now time to repeat this initiative. During the week beginning September 15th, we will push an updated version of the Identity Finder software out to all HSU computers so that you can conduct your own search for, and cleanup of, files containing the following three key items of PII:

  • Social Security numbers
  • Credit card numbers
  • Driver's license numbers

Identity Finder will appear as an icon on your desktop. Please use this software to scan your system and “shred” (securely delete) any PII on your system or in your shared drive that does not serve a current campus business need. You can also use the software to mark any false positive matches (such as EmplIDs) as “ignore.”  You can download instructions for running the scan on the Identity Finder service page under Using this Service.

Beginning on October 15, 2014, the campus Information Security Office will initiate a comprehensive scan of all campus computers.  This process will either collect the results of the scan you performed from your computer or will scan your computer if you have not done so. Based on the results, ITS will work with departments in which PII Is found and not “shredded” on appropriate handling of that data moving forward.

A few items to be aware of:

  • We recommend you set your scan to run overnight, as it is a long process.
  • Do not run the scan on a Thursday night, as this could conflict with your Windows updates.
  • If you run the scan overnight, lock your computer screen by pressing the Windows key and L (PCs) or CTRL-Shift-Power (Macs).
  • All files stored on your computer and U drive will be scanned, including encrypted files and images.
  • If you use Outlook with Gmail Connector, your email is copied locally to your computer and will therefore be scanned; this will not happen  if you use only Gmail in the web interface.
  • All passwords are Level 1 protected data. If you save passwords in your browser (which we don’t recommend), these will be flagged by Identity Finder; please talk to your ITC about how to securely store your passwords

Note that any files found to contain protected data will be flagged by Identity Finder, but the protected data itself will not be shown on the screen to protect the confidentiality of that information.

If you have questions, please contact the Technology Help Desk at extension 4357 or online atwww.humboldt.edu/tech-help

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