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from Associated Press on Wednesday, March 26, 2003

TUCSON (AP) — A $100,000 study will aim to bolster the security of computer networks at Arizona universities, as experts say the schools are targeted daily by hackers.

The study, commissioned by the Arizona Board of Regents, should be finished by August. The University of Arizona, Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University maintain internal security measures, but this is the first time all three are joining in an outside examination.

Security concerns related to hacking, copyright violations and e-mail spam force Arizona State University and the University of Arizona to annually spend an estimated $400,000 each, officials with the two schools said.

The regents authorized the assessment March 7, only a few days after authorities discovered hackers had seized more than 50,000 Social Security numbers from a database at the University of Texas at Austin. It was one of the largest cases of identity theft known to hit a campus network.

"Security has become critical to all of us. You see more and more of the incidents like what happened" at Austin, said William Lewis, ASU's information technology vice provost.

"We are literally under attack seven days a week," he said.

While some attacks come from within the campuses, Lewis said most are the work of people on the outside — students from other schools, hackers and international interests.

The University of Arizona network connects more than 30,000 computers, making it the largest non-Defense Department system in Southern Arizona. Many of its computers are in public-access areas such as libraries.

The University of Arizona averages 200,000 hits a day from people trying to find vulnerabilities, estimates Edward Frohling, the university's principal network systems analyst.

Most of the attempted breaches that have been tracked involved people trying to access hard drives that they could use to attack a third party, or to stash and store copyrighted material.

While some perpetrators turn out to be 13-year-old hackers, Frohling said computer systems in the private and public sectors are under increased attack from terrorists and industrial spies looking to tap into high-end research and criminals searching for personal information.

"Identity theft is probably the No. 1 growing industry for organized crime," he said.

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