Tech researchers and AU IT strengthen cybersecurity with local networks
Stronger cybersecurity and greater flexibility are the two key benefits following an inclusive development project in which AU IT and ECE have restructured all of the department’s laboratory environments from a shared network to individual networks. The solution will now be rolled out to the remaining departments at Tech and, in time, to the rest of the university.
Until now, all laboratory environments at Tech have been on the same network, meaning that a single click on a problematic link could potentially infect every research environment on the faculty’s shared research network. A new project from AU IT, carried out in collaboration with researchers primarily from ECE, is now changing that.
“All research environments at Tech – and in fact also at Nat – have so far been on the same network, which means that 300–400 research environments have been connected. We are now moving from a faculty-wide research network to a network per research environment, so you no longer have to fear spreading an infection to all your colleagues if you are unlucky enough to have your equipment compromised,” says Thomas Louis Merton Hansen, project manager at AU IT.
At the same time, the shift from a shared network to many separate networks provides greater flexibility in the IT solutions available to researchers.
“When you work with a network at faculty level, it naturally becomes very restrictive. The smaller networks we are now moving to can be far more flexible in terms of what we can allow researchers to do, giving us the opportunity to support their work more effectively,” says Thomas Louis Merton Hansen.
Strengthening cybersecurity across AU
More than 50 research environments at ECE and other departments have now been migrated, and it is time to extend the project to the remaining departments at Tech and, eventually, to the university’s roughly 650 research environments. This will take the form of four to five standard solutions that each research environment can choose from – all developed in collaboration with researchers from ECE:
“When we launched the project, ECE were quick to say they wanted to help develop the new solutions. We started by bringing some of the most complex research environments on board and created solutions that are fully supported. So we’ve had a really good collaboration with the researchers,” says Thomas Louis Merton Hansen.
The project, informally known as the implementation of CampusNet 2.0, is part of a broader effort to strengthen research security and flexibility at Aarhus University. It was therefore natural to begin at Tech, which has a high concentration of critical research.
“With AU’s new focus on cybersecurity and the establishment of AU Cyber, we have taken on a responsibility to help strengthen Denmark’s digital resilience. With CampusNet 2.0 and the close collaboration between AU IT and our researchers, we are, so to speak, taking our own medicine to protect our research from being misused or becoming a target for espionage,” says Brian Vinter, Vice-Dean for research at Tech and Chair of AU’s URIS implementation group.
Timeline
The migration of research environments at Katrinebjerg and the IT Byen is expected to be completed before the summer holidays, after which the migration of AU Viborg’s research environments will begin. The new University City is also on the new network.