UNIVERSITI MALAYA gaps will be filled through the reskilling and upskilling of talent in the institution . ICT has now become our strategic backbone and our level of utilisation has reached more than 95 % of our major activities .”
This unbroken online presence of UM systems comes with its own set of challenges .
“ In 2015 , we came face-to-face with a DDOS ( Denial-of-service ) attack . The whole network was affected and became painfully slow for about a week ,” says Abu Samah . As you can imagine , the onslaught of complaints about connectivity issues were stupendous , and the impediment to other online operations even more so . Through the years we have also had our fair share of experiences in facing other types of cyber security issues .
“ Our challenge is that our security team is managed by a very small team who are trying their best but are generally overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the workload . Out of these experiences and with the right planning and response , we strive to further develop a multi-level security monitoring system to help pre-empt and mitigate such problems in the future .”
UM implemented multiple monitoring tools at the Gateway and Data Centre level . Abu Samah says : “ In addition to the Intrusion Prevention System , we also have web application firewalls , Anti-DDOS , have overhauled our coding structure in all our application systems and have further improved our NS protection ( Network Security ) and much more . We now have around 8 to 10 types of tools to assist us , but we still find that this isn ' t sufficient , and can be improved further to fulfil the need for constant monitoring . We are gradually looking into more systematic types of automation to help alleviate the monitoring loads towards a smarter environment .” EXECUTIVE BIO
ASIAH ABU SAMAH
TITLE : DIRECTOR OF ICT INDUSTRY : EDUCATION , IT LOCATION : MALAYSIA
Graduated from Leeds University ,
UK in 1992 with Bachelor of Science , Combined Studies in Accounting and Data Processing . She joined the University of Malaya ’ s IT Centre in 1993 and is now her 28th year in the organisation . Her area of contribution and experience ranges from Application System development , ICT security , Data Centre management , Network services , Multimedia services , IT governance and Staff development . This consistent development in such areas has led UM to pursue continuous digital transformation . Her ideal goal is to form a Smart Sustainable Campus focusing on human driven IR 4.0 concept of process improvement .