Network Security Regulations

North Carolina State University – Administrative Regulations

NC State University has traditionally provided an open network with unfettered Internet access to assist in the research on campus. Unfortunately, this culture of openness has made our university and many others vulnerable to cyber attacks.  To better protect campus resources, NC State has developed two initiatives that will allow us to bring a consistent security model to our wired and wireless networks.

  • Wired Architecture – Our wired networks have historically allowed traffic to and from campus with little restriction. NC State now offers a protected network architecture (NCSU-PN) which will help reduce the possibility of an outside attack on our campus networks. A simple one-time change allows LAN Administrators to transition their departmental networks to this protected infrastructure easily. 
  • Wireless -Free and secure wireless Internet access, provided by eduroam (education roaming), is now available at NC State and thousands of other educational and research institutions in dozens of countries.

Network Security Regulations

  1. Campus computing and network administrators have the authority and responsibility to run programs or take other actions to support and security of the campus computing environment. However, the university’s network operations center must notify any action that might reasonably be expected to pose a risk to the production network. Prompt notification is required for mistakes, unexpected results, or problems that negatively impact production work. Send messages to network@ncsu.edu or call 919.513.9675.
  2. College and departmental administrators should restrict actions to their areas of network responsibility except by mutual agreement with other affected peers on their local or building network.
  3. Students cannot run network-based security analysis and attack programs such as Saint, Nmap, DoS, DDoS or similar tools. Doing so will subject them to disciplinary action. (See Administrative Regulations, Section V).
  4. Following NC State Administrative Regulations, network administrators will investigate and test software and actions that pose risks to NC State University network security. Corrective and protective measures will be taken as necessary.