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General Information
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The Minnesota State Internet Guardian service works by maintaining a repository of malicious sites. It doesn’t block the content of websites itself but, rather, those sites known to host malicious content. These sites are maintained on the “bad” list until the associated content or links have been cleared of malicious content.
The goal of this service is to help protect our university’s information resources from Internet threats by blocking malicious links, phishing links, and other malicious software from reaching their intended destinations.
This service operates behind the scenes and is largely invisible to end users. Should a user navigate to a known malicious link, a web page will be displayed informing them they have been protected. It is possible a user may encounter an otherwise known “good” website which becomes temporarily unavailable due to advertisements to sponsor sites which have malware or other malicious content.
There may be use cases in which faculty and students may have interest to visit websites which host malicious content for academic and research purposes. In such cases, a request may be sent to ITS to have a site reviewed and potentially added for accessibility. Any advanced notice of such need would be appreciated.
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Although this initiative is intended to protect Metro State users from malicious content, it is still important to practice safe computing behavior. The best form of protection for our campus related to these threats is informed and knowledgeable users. Learn more about best practices for staying safe online.
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The implementation of Internet Guardian is in compliance with Minnesota State Procedure 5.22.1.