ONLINE LEARNING CAMPUS
● THEOLOGICALLY ACCREDITED
●
STATE AUTHORIZED
    
    
Northwestern
Theological Seminary Online Security Policy
SECURITY
Security
is a priority at Northwestern Theological Seminary. We are committed
to protecting the security and confidentiality of your information.
We use combinations of state-of-the-art technology and other methods
to ensure that your online sessions are secured.
BROWSER
Browser
– Northwestern’s standards are among the highest of seminaries on
the Internet. Accessing our secure areas require that your browser
support SSL, and does not allow information to be stored on your
hard drive unless you specifically download it and save it on your
computer.
INTERNET SECURITY MEASURES
Internet Security Measures
- Any personal information you send to us is encrypted. This
technology, called Secure Socket Layers (SSL), protects information
you submit or receive through the Application Page or NTSemail Form.
Any sensitive personal information that you send either by use of
the Application Page [found on the Seminary Website], or Secured NTSemail
[found in the Administration Page of the Online Campus], is
held in a secured environment, protected by tools such as firewalls
and/or database field encryption.
ENCRYPTION STANDARDS
Encryption Standards
- All communication between your computer and Northwestern during a
Northwestern Campus Online session is scrambled with the highest
level of encryption available for today's popular browsers.
Encryption is the process of translating meaningful communication
into undecipherable code and then back into meaningful
communication.
To ensure a high level of security when accessing the Online Campus,
we require the use of 128-bit SSL encryption. It ensures that
communication between you and Northwestern cannot be translated by
anyone without the correct keys. This level of security is available
for Netscape Navigator®, Microsoft Internet Explorer®, and America
Online® browsers free of charge.
Technically, using 128-bit encryption means that each time you log
in to the Online Campus, your computer is assigned a “key” made up
of a string of 128 zeros and ones. All messages from your computer
to our systems are then coded based on this “key”, but they can only
be decoded using Northwestern’s equivalent 128-digit “key”. It is
never transmitted on any open network, since it resides only on our
system. It’s important to note that each time you log in, a
different “key” is assigned, so that anyone attempting to break
through the encryption algorithm would have to start over from
scratch every time you use the Online Campus. To put that into
perspective, a 128-bit key has 2128 possible combinations (that’s
340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 different
possibilities).
FIREWALL
Firewall
- Northwestern uses firewalls to help limit entry by anyone without
proper authorization. A firewall is a security mechanism that
regulates the data going in and out of a network. It is a commonly
used, specialized computer which acts as a shield against data going
in or out of a network. It checks to make sure that communications
only occur between approved individuals and that the communication
is in the proper protocol.
YOUR ROLE IN SECURITY
You can also play an important role in maintaining your security:
-
Never give
out your Password to anyone.
-
Do not
store your Password or other sensitive data on your computer.
-
Log out of
the OSR or OLC areas of the Online Campus when you are done
using it.
IMPORTANT
If you feel your account or Password has been compromised at any
time, let us know immediately by contacting the Administration. Send
us this information via the NTSemail Secured form only found in the
Administration Office link or
click here.
|
