Departmental Network/Security Contact (NSC) Description and Responsibilities:
An NSC is a departmental employee who acts as a liaison and conduit for timely and relevant information flow between central networking and computer security personnel and the departments on campus. The following list describes the responsibilities of the NSC.
- Each department will have 2 contacts: one primary and one secondary, to support the department, regardless of staff location(s).
- The NSC will be the recipient of all security scanning activity reports for departmental computer systems.
- The NSC may request computer system security scans on behalf of their department for systems which are installed and administered by the department.
- The NSC will be the recipient of network alerts, outage notifications, or other networking issues affecting the department, and will be responsible for disseminating such information to appropriate departmental staff.
- The NSC is a starting point for department staff's network and/or security questions.
- The NSC is the contact point for UI Security/Computer Incident Response coordination.
- The NSC is expected to attend security seminars (policy, awareness, and related) as they are offered.
- The NSC must be permanent university staff employed at least 50% time by the department.
- The NSC will be included in electronic mailing lists as needed (such as building NSC lists and a campus NSC list) to accommodate relevant, timely information flow. These lists will be administered centrally, and will be used for alerts and schedules from central network engineering and security staff.
- The NSC is not designed to replace the departmental "LAN Liaison" staff, but could in some circumstances be the same individuals. (e.g., in a small department).
- Smaller departments may choose to "roll up" their contacts to the next organizational level, such as to the college or administrative/business offices. This is discretionary, and perfectly acceptable.
- A form is available to request NSC changes, due to employee turnover, changed responsibilities, and the like. Changes can also be requested by sending a note to security@uiowa.edu. Because it is important to keep this information up-to-date, contacts will be validated periodically to ensure reliable information.