[Eril-l] hackers, messed up COUNTER data, and ezproxy vs openathens

[Tessa Minchew]

Hi, Melissa! So sorry to hear that this is happening. I know it's extremely
inconvenient and frustrating.

We're on EZproxy, so I cannot comment on OpenAthens' ability to minimize
these types of incidents, but I have been keeping an eye on our IP blocks
over the years, and <knock on wood infinity> they have *plummeted* for us
since the university required 2FA enrollment for all employees in late
2017. After students were required to enroll in 2FA in late 2020, our IP
blocks dried up even further. We only had 3 total last year, and none so
far this year. A new record by a mile. <knock on wood infinity+++>

Obviously, requiring 2FA for all users probably isn't something your
library can do without an institutional mandate, but it's worth
investigating to see if that mandate may be in the works. In this day and
age, it would be surprising if it's not. There are massive implications for
compromised credentials that go far beyond IP blocks for library resources.
And institutionally required 2FA would be a lot cheaper and easier than an
authentication system migration, unless you have additional needs that you
feel OpenAthens would support better than EZproxy.

Tessa

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Tessa L.H. Minchew
Electronic Resources Librarian
Acquisitions & Discovery
NC State University Libraries
919.515.5182
tlminche at ncsu.edu


On Thu, Aug 26, 2021 at 4:02 PM <eril-l-request at lists.eril-l.org> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. hackers, messed up COUNTER data, and ezproxy vs openathens
>       (Melissa Belvadi)
>    2. Re: hackers, messed up COUNTER data, and ezproxy vs
>       openathens (Athena Hoeppner)
>    3. Re: hackers, messed up COUNTER data, and ezproxy vs
>       openathens (Nikki DeMoville)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 16:59:46 +0000
> From: Melissa Belvadi <mbelvadi at upei.ca>
> To: "eril-l at lists.eril-l.org" <eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>
> Subject: [Eril-l] hackers, messed up COUNTER data, and ezproxy vs
>         openathens
> Message-ID:
>         <
> QB1PR01MB270827C7AD5AFD0FAFBB97E1C3C79 at QB1PR01MB2708.CANPRD01.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM
> >
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Hi, all.
>
>
> We've had two more "rounds", for a couple months late last year and then
> again in May-June of this year, where our COUNTER data for some major
> journal publishers is worthless because breached-password events caused
> absurd spikes across every journal in the package (both ft uses and
> turnaways).  We have self-hosted ezproxy, with a Shibboleth/LDAP server
> doing the authentication.
> Knowing that there's just no way for us to enforce password security so
> that leaks never happen, I was wondering if anyone could speak to whether
> it would make any significant difference to this problem if we were to
> switch from ezproxy to open athens. I know open athens would rely on that
> same underlying authentication, but I was given the impression that it had
> additional ways to prevent such hacking, especially if it is coming from
> overseas (we all know which countries' IPs these incidents originate from).
>
> Could anyone who has switched from ezproxy to open athens and had
> previously experienced these kinds of problems share with us whether you've
> seen such breaches that are big enough to impact COUNTER data cease after
> you switched?
>
>
> Melissa Belvadi
> Collections Librarian
> University of Prince Edward Island
> mbelvadi at upei.ca<mailto:mbelvadi at upei.ca>  902-566-0581
> ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4433-0189
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> >
> Make an appointment<https://mbelvadi.youcanbook.me/> via YouCanBookMe
>
>
>
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