Florida Gulf Coast university will comply with a Florida Board of Governors-approved emergency amendment to Regulation 3.0075, Security of Data and Related Information Technology Resources, which prevents university-owned devices and networks from accessing websites and social media platforms that pose state and national cybersecurity concerns.
A notice issued by FGCU Wednesday identified online sites in the State University System Prohibited Technologies List identified as high-risk technologies as Kaspersky, VKontakte, Tencent QQ, TikTok and WeChat.
The statement issued by FGCU said: "As part of our commitment to protecting student and employee data, intellectual property and university systems, FGCU is taking all necessary steps to ensure the university is compliant with the statewide directive."
Also this week, the University of South Florida, Florida State University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida International University, and the University of Florida acknowledged they were banning the listed applications and social media platforms from school-owned devices and networks.
To comply, and effective Wednesday, FGCU said:
- University-owned devices are blocked from accessing the services/technologies on the list.
- Personal devices will not be able to access prohibited services/technologies while connected to FGCU’s network, including campus Wi-Fi and wired networks.
In issuing the statement, FGCU cited a message from Chancellor Ray Rodrigues:
"On March 29, 2023, due to continued and increasing cyber threats against our universities, an emergency amendment to regulation 3.0075, Security of Data Related Information Technology Resources, was adopted by the Board of Governors.
This regulation requires institutions to remove technologies published in the State University System (SUS) Prohibited Technologies List from any university-owned device and to block network traffic associated with these technologies. The SUS Prohibited Technologies List is available on the Board’s website at https://www.flbog.edu/regulations/guidelines.
This amended regulation takes effect immediately and requires institutions to implement necessary safeguards.
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