Take Four: Maintaining Privacy and Protecting Data at Colleges and Universities

3. Use the right technology tools for access control. Information breaches at the hands of hackers pose the biggest threat to higher-education institutions. Assess the technologies that are available and consider identity-based access controls to protect data. Some tools include firewalls, intrusion detection and other security solutions that can serve as filters; hardware tokens and smart cards that can be used for greater user authentication; network admission control technologies to verify the health of computers connecting to the network; virtual private networks, which provide an encrypted connection for remote users; and password-management products, which automate password creation and resets.