Legacy WINS servers successfully decommissioned

July 8, 2021

ITS achieved another critical step to reduce security and operational vulnerabilities by eliminating their Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS) servers, a legacy name resolution technology that Domain Name System (DNS) replaced over 20 years ago. The use of WINS servers increases the University’s risk for potential cyber-attacks.

In June, ITS implemented a phased approach to remove user’s access to their centrally-managed WINS servers by network segment areas. These areas included: AnyConnect, central campus, health campuses (School of Medicine, School of Public Health, School of Nursing, 2 Science Park, and Yale Health Center at 55 Lock Street), Public Safety, ScienceNet/Hill, and West Campus. This phased approach involved notifying IT Partners on possible impact and action required and allowed the team to closely monitor and quickly mitigate any issues, resulting in little to no effect on users, systems, or devices.

Additionally, ITS disabled their WINS servers upon final access removal and pushed out a policy disabling WINS configuration on all ITS centrally managed devices.

This coordinated effort was a joint team from Network Engineering, Endpoint Engineering, Platform Services, and ITS Help Desk. This work was only related to ITS centrally-managed WINS servers and WINS configured devices, reference KB0025456for further information. Please note you may need to log in to CAS to view.

If you are experiencing an issue or have a question, contact the ITS Help Desk at 203-432-9000 or visit the website to start a chat or report a problem.

Service Quality