Why is Cornell concerned about the security of my computer?

The work you do is important both to you and to the university. Because of the increased incidence of malware attacks, security breaches, phishing emails, and other forms of malicious online threats worldwide, the university is placing an ever-greater emphasis on data security for university-owned computers. Threats to the security of computers used by faculty and staff are threats to the privacy, reputation, livelihood, finances, and well-being of members of the Cornell community.

In addition, many faculty and staff at Cornell work with important and often sensitive or confidential data that legally require an extra measure of vigilance to protect from malicious agents. For details, see Policy 5.10 on Information Security which covers concerns and standards for Cornell in detail.

What Is Certified Desktop?

In response to increased online threats and Policy 5.10, Cornell Information Technologies (CIT) is has established the Certified Desktop program. This service offers a suite of security applications for university-owned devices. To encourage deployment of these data security tools, the tools are being licensed at a reduced cost to departments and academic units that agree to meet the program's goals for data security compliance.

How do we know these tools are effective and trustworthy?

The data security tools chosen for Certified Desktop have also been deployed by many of Cornell’s peer institutions (such as Harvard, Yale, and Stanford) and by major corporations to protect their users from data security threats.

How do we know these tools will work well together on my system?

CIT has conducted pilot testing of these tools and is confident this set of programs will work well together without impacting the performance of the individual user’s computer.

Our goal is to deliver a “frictionless” security service—to keep Cornell’s computers safe without noticeably impacting the important work of our end users.

How do I know if a particular program has been installed on my computer (particularly CrashPlan and CrowdStrike)?

If you are unsure whether these programs have been installed on your Windows computer, you can check in Software Center. The Installation Status tab will provide a list of programs on your computer—look in the Status column to check if the program is “Installed”.

If you have any concerns about what security software has been deployed to your computer, you should contact your local IT staff for details.