Board Shorts: March 4, 2020

The Board talks space, basketball, and meets SFU’s Chief Information Officer about last week’s security breach

0
546
Irene Lo / The Peak

Written by: Michelle Gomez, Assistant News Editor

Clarification on housing Rotunda groups in the SUB

The Board passed a motion clarifying the terms of their agreement to house Rotunda groups in the Student Union Building (SUB). 

The motion mandates Executive Director Sylvia Ceacero to enter into sublease agreements with the Rotunda groups. It also notes that the Rotunda groups’ subleases should align with the head-lease signed between the SFSS and SFU for the SUB. 

Furthermore, it adds that SOCA will be granted space as per Configuration 3 with a Memorandum of Understanding. 

The motion was carried unanimously. 

SFU’s Chief Information Officer discusses security breach

SFU’s Chief Information Officer Mark Roman discussed the recent security breach at the Board meeting. 

Roman explained to the Board that the breach occurred on Thursday morning, and was discovered by SFU on Friday. He noted that they were lucky that it was discovered “pretty quick.” After the breach was discovered, a large IT team spent the entire weekend working to understand what had happened, what data was taken, and what the next steps should be. 

“I don’t want to go into the details of what happened, but it was human error. A person made a mistake,” said Roman. He explained that due to a human error, an automated bot found a weakness in the network and was able to take some data. Roman noted that the passwords that were taken were encrypted, and that it is difficult to decrypt them, but not impossible. 

“The probability of risk is low, but we need to exercise an overabundance of caution and change our passwords,” he concluded. 

He added that the computer that the mistake was made on has been unplugged from the network, thus solving the problem. 

“I apologize and regret what has happened; it’s very unfortunate and we’re doing our best to fix it, and we’re being upfront and honest about what happened.”

March Mayhem 

The Board voted to approve up to $2,600 for their March Mayhem event. 

Environment Representative Julian Loutsik explained that it will be a 3-on-3 basketball tournament held in Convocation Mall. The event is open for all students to participate. 

Loutsik noted that this event is in partnership with the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), and aims “to showcase some of our athletes who play different sports, and showcase students who maybe didn’t make varsity teams but are still talented. It’s a chance for them to participate in an athletic event.”

Applied Sciences Representative Nick Chubb added that the event will include a barbecue. 

Leave a Reply