New firewalls improve security

During the first quarter of 2016, the ITS Information Security Office completed a nine-month project to migrate all campus firewall clients away from the old Juniper SRX firewalls and onto the new Palo Alto Networks firewalls. The Juniper SRX firewalls, purchased six years ago, were the second generation of firewall hardware on the campus network and the first offer of an administratively funded firewall solution available to improve the security of sensitive information and University processes for any Carolina unit or on-campus constituent.

The new firewalls provide cutting-edge features intended to reduce the incidence of malware infections, attacks on sensitive and mission-critical University resources, and phishing attacks.

The completion of this project required extensive collaboration among ITS teams and between ITS and its many firewall clients. The ITS Information Security Office invested thousands of work hours to complete this project ahead of schedule.

The new firewalls provide cutting-edge features intended to reduce the incidence of malware infections, attacks on sensitive and mission-critical University resources, and phishing attacks. While doing the intensely demanding work of migrating from one platform to another, with all the differences between them, the Information Security Office has begun using these advanced features, which now protect thousands of users in various University schools, departments and offices.

The Information Security Office has tested the most advanced of these additional protections and is adding them to production firewall clients on an ongoing basis, with a focus on not disrupting University business operations. This rollout is planned to be completed by the end of 2016.