Office of the Chief Information Officer Press Release
The University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia

OCIO > EITS > Press Releases

Wednesday, December 11, 2008

WRITER: Bert DeSimone, 706/338-9849, bert@uga.edu
CONTACTS: Sandi Glass, executive director of the College of Education Office of Information Technology and CIO Advisory Council Chair, 706/542-1194, slglass@uga.edu, and Brian Rivers, director of Security, Network Operations, and Infrastructure, EITS, 706/542-0325, brivers@uga.edu

Thank you, UGA, for a successful launch of SecureUGA

ATHENS, Ga.— UGA faculty, staff, and student workers have shown overwhelming support for securing the University's information and data. The final numbers are in for the November 30 compliance deadline, and nearly 90% of those required to take the first four SecureUGA awareness modules have complied.

SecureUGA, which was officially launched April 2 in a memo from UGA's three senior vice presidents, is an information security education and awareness program that includes mandatory, self-paced, online awareness presentations. All faculty and staff at UGA were required to complete the first four of these presentations by November 30.

"The response of the faculty, staff, and students demonstrates the commitment of our university to a safe and secure computing environment," said Sandi Glass, director of the College of Education Office of Information Technology and CIO Advisory Cabinet Chair. "The key is that this is not the end of the SecureUGA project. We are providing additional awareness presentations for faculty, staff and students for 2009. These presentations focus on key concerns such as identity theft, copyright awareness, privacy, and email security."

"The additional awareness presentation modules will be required in 2009," said Brian Rivers, director of Security, Network Operations, and Infrastructure for EITS. "No firm deadline for these additional modules has been set; however, everyone is encouraged to take them at their earliest convenience and will receive full credit toward compliance with future participation requirements."

About SecureUGA
SecureUGA (secure.uga.edu) is a role based security training and accountability model in which every individual, regardless of position, has a responsibility to protect our sensitive and critical data. SecureUGA is comprised of three components: policy and procedures, technology, and people. Policy sets the foundation to guide our process and action. Technological enhancements will build strong systems and infrastructure. The third and most important component, people, will be addressed via awareness, training, and education.

About the Office of the CIO and EITS
The Office of the Chief Information Officer and Enterprise Information Technology Services (EITS) are committed to the mission of UGA as a land-and-sea-grant institution where academics come first and the research extensive university community encourages research efforts at the undergraduate and graduate levels. To that end, under the direction of the University´s Chief Information Officer, EITS endeavors to provide a robust, reliable, and secure information technology infrastructure, maintain essential production services, and offer world-class support.