Information Technology Security Office (ITSO)

Marc Scarborough, Information Security Officer

The Information Technology Security Office protects the electronic assets of Rice University.   ITSO staff maintain information integrity, confidentiality of electronic communications, and issues that impact the security of the technology infrastructure such as virus and spam prevention, confidentiality and privacy, system intrusion detection, prevention, and forensics.  The group provides leadership, strategic direction, and coordination for deployment of campus-wide information security initiatives, and develops and implements security policies and procedures.   They oversee and coordinate planning, implementation and management of security activities of Information Technology groups, ensure clear lines of communication and collaboration on security issues, and  work with the Rice community to ensure campus information security needs are part of the strategic direction for IT security initiatives.

Projects include:

  • Data cleaning system - We are developing a service that helps ensure systems are clean of Rice-related information before they leave campus or are transferred to other areas.
  • Web and Blog sites - We are working on developing and updating the following security web sites:
    http://www.rice.edu/it/security
    http://blogs.rice.edu/virusinfo
    http://blogs.rice.edu/security
  • Distributed snort sensors - We are working on improving internal security by setting up a distributed system of malicious traffic sensors in key areas of the University.
  • Forensics procedures - We created a process for performing system forensics and are working to implement a centrally-managed image and forensics repository for case files.
  • Policies - We are continually developing our policies, procedures and best practices.