Anti-theft Security Steps Suggested

By VIC COX

Last January, more than $15,000 worth of computers, audio-visual, and other equipment was reported stolen from buildings on campus. Police are still following leads from their investigations, but evidence in this type of theft is often hard to gather.

It doesn't have to be that way, suggests Will Wood, asset protection manager for the UCSB Bookstore. "Camera surveillance systems can give you nice color pictures, a visual record of what happened—and they're relatively inexpensive," he said.

A four-camera system, with videotape recorder, monitor, and multiplexer, runs between $500 and $600 at Costco, he pointed out. For additional cameras or more sophisticated technology, the price of such systems can climb to $2,500, Wood said as he thumbed through manufacturers' data sheets in the bookstore's locked monitoring room.

Not surprisingly, some thieves do not take kindly to observation. One young man used a baseball bat on a bookstore camera, "but we got a full portrait of him," Wood reported.

A former Santa Barbara Police Department crime prevention officer, Wood is happy to give guided tours of his monitoring setup and share the security systems information he has collected. He asks only that people call him (x2195) to arrange a time.

He also offered to share his student employees, who are experienced installers, should an office or department decide to purchase a camera system.

Other than surveillance systems, Wood and Sgt. Mark Signa, campus crime prevention officer, said that simple, inexpensive countermeasures could reduce opportunistic equipment theft, or at least make it easier to identify recovered items:

Lock doors where equipment is kept; establish storage rooms with combination code locks; maintain an inventory of serial numbers; and attach alarms to computers.

In Case of Hackers...

If a computer is stolen, or invaded by a hacker, valuable personal information may be compromised. Even programming mistakes can expose critical data to unauthorized eyes.

Apparently, such a software glitch occurred earlier this month on a UC application status Web site, where current student applicants using proper passwords can update their information.

In this case, the program may have allowed some students to see personal information, including Social Security numbers, home addresses, and SAT scores, that did not belong to them.

Acting under California law (SB 1386), the University has notified 2,156 applicants that other applicants may have seen their personal data online. There is no way to know what, if anything, was disclosed by the program's failure, said an announcement from the Office of the President, but the UC response followed the updated policy on security breach reporting procedures.

Should a similar computer security breach occur at UCSB, Doug Drury at information systems and computing is the campus contact for incident reports or to just ask questions. He can be reached at x5036 or e-mailed at doug.drury@isc.ucsb.edu.