Secure computing at home & while traveling

Yale's privacy and security requirements apply to ALL locations, including your home, hotels, and other off-campus sites. Be sure to put appropriate safeguards in place to prevent unauthorized exposure of sensitive information to anyone, including family members, friends, and others.

Guide to secure off-campus computing

Know your data. Special security standards apply to computers accessing, storing or transmitting 3-Lock or confidential Yale records, including Protected Health Information (PHI) and Personal Identity Information (Social Security Numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, etc). 

• PHI users may not store, access, transmit or receive ePHI on personally-owned computers, and must use a University computer that follows current secure configuration standards.
• You must ensure confidential records (paper or electronic) are physically secured and not accessible to or viewable by family members. 
• You must securely dispose of all paper or electronic documents containing confidential data and take precautions to safeguard against loss of confidential paper or electronic data. 
• You must report the loss or theft of data or computing devices, including smartphones and thumb drives. 

Know where to get support.  You must be generally capable of maintaining a secure computing environment and trouble-shooting technical problems. The ITS Help Desk and website will be your primary source of IT support.  Yale ITS does not dispatch IT Support providers off-campus. 

Know the University policies and procedures that apply to you.  Yale policies and state and federal regulations apply to University records and regulated data, no matter the location. 

Protect your NetID and password. 

• Create strong passwords, change them often and NEVER share them with others.
• Avoid identity theft and the ‘phishing’ attempts to fool you into sharing your NetID or other personal information. 

Protect your computer. 

• Ensure your computer and applications have ongoing security updates. 
• Yale allows all Yale students, faculty, and staff to use Symantec AntiVirus for free, on all your machines: desktop, laptop, and any computers you have on your home network .
• Always use a VPN connection before you access Yale online resources.

Protect your home network. 

• Install a home firewall
• Establish a secure network at home
• Secure your home wireless network if you have one

Additional advice for travelers

With wireless networking on laptops and smartphones, and with public or commercial wireless ("Wi-Fi") network services in most airports and hotels, connecting to your Yale email and resources has never been easier. However, public wireless networks have become major targets for identity thieves and other computer criminals.

Before you travel, work with your local support provider to be sure your laptop and/or smartphone is set up for secure connections to Yale.

A few basic precautions can assure that you won't become a target for cybercriminals while you travel:

1. Prior  to traveling determine whether your computer contains any 3-lock data.
2. Perform a data scan to identify the nature and location of potentially confidential information such as Social Security or credit card numbers.
3. Ensure your operating system is fully patched. 
4. Be sure your antivirus software has the latest virus definition updates.
5. Third party software should also be updated (i.e. Adobe).
6. It is strongly recommended the VPN client is used when access any Yale resource.

To connect to your email via the Web:

Yale webmail access points all use SSL/TLS security and encryption to provide a fairly secure and private connection to your Yale email even if you must use a public computer to access your email (at a conference, for instance), or if you cannot set up a VPN connection to the Internet while you are traveling.

Traveling outside the United States

The Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive has assembled a counterintelligence awareness booklet that contains valuable information for those traveling abroad. U.S. Customs may try and impose an import tax if they believe your laptop was purchased abroad. You have the option of registering your laptop with U.S. Customs.