Policy and Security Services
The Office of Information Technology collaborates with other units on campus to develop policy, that with proactive systematic monitoring and risk mitigation, protects the WMU community against physical and virtual threats.
Account provisioning and deprovisioning
Each student receives a Bronco NetID account and password when they are accepted to WMU. Faculty and staff receive one upon employment. The Bronco NetID provides access to account information, email, GoWMU, and other various systems. Bronco NetIDs are deprovisioned following a prescribed schedule, dependent upon the circumstances.
See also Bronco NetID. There is no charge for this service.
Data security
Working with the campus community, information technology has developed a series of policies and procedures to assure that University data assets are secure and protected and in compliance with state and federal regulations.
See also data security policies. There is no charge for this service.
Digital certificates
Digital certificates are a means of proving your identity in electronic transactions and assure those using your servers that the information they receive from you is authentic. Information technology serves as the WMU clearing house for obtaining digital certificates.
Disaster recovery
Information technology continually updates and modifies a disaster recovery plan, and maintains a disaster recovery site, in the event of an extended outage or disaster.
There is no charge for this service.
File sharing
Information technology runs an automated system that notices when computers attached to ResNet and WMUnet appear to be uploading files using peer-to-peer file sharing technology. An email is sent to the registered owner of the computer to educate them on the dangers of file sharing.
See also file sharing at WMU. There is no charge for this service.
Incident response
Information technology participates in the information security incident response team that is responsible for responding to information security incidents.
See also information security incident response policy. There is no charge for this service.
Lost or stolen devices
Working with law enforcement and pertinent departments, information technology investigates and takes appropriate actions to assure security of University data when University or personally owned computing devices have been lost or stolen.
See also lost or stolen devices. There is no charge for this service.
Policy collaboration and creation
The Office of Information Technology facilitates the development of information technology policies, rules, guidelines and procedures in collaboration with the Campus Information Security Committee as well as other University constituents. IT also works to educate the campus community on matters of policy, law, and best practices when accessing and using electronic data.
See also rules and policies. There is no charge for this service.
Security training
Information technology provides security training to employees of Western Michigan University. This training is provided in the form of a presentation at new employee training sessions as well as an online training program made available to various units of the University.
See also security training. There is no charge for this service.
TECHNOLOGY COMPLIANCE REVIEW
Information technology reviews proposed product purchases to ensure the products will work within WMU's computing and network architecture. The process applies whenever a purchased product will be connected to the network, used for ongoing instructional use, be installed on more than a few computers, be housed in the University Computing Center machine room, and/or be integrated with other University systems and data.
See also technology compliance review. There is no charge for this service.
Virtual private network
A virtual private network, also known as a VPN, is provided to allow encrypted connections to WMU's network.
More information is available in the software downloads channel in GoWMU. There is no charge for this service.