Happy New Year!
I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday season. After being away since the Center’s Holiday Party, I have a pile of stuff to get caught up on. Part of that is reading through all the emails regarding the IT updates that occurred while I was away. Campus IT was very busy trying to get a lot of much-needed maintenance done while the bulk of campus people were away. So let’s get started on what’s been happening….
Center-related IT updates
Nick and Michael from CAHNRS IT came back to install more equipment and lots of cable to help us with some of our connectivity issues. We now have a new internet line from LocalTel to handle any excess traffic or switch on when K20 drops us. Unfortunately, there are still limits on our capacity that need to be addressed. Nick will return early February to install more equipment that will help but is really only a short-term solution. We will need to purchase more upgrades to address the issue.
In addition to this work, they also installed a wireless system that communicates between the shop and Overley. This replaces the LocalTel internet service that they have been using independently of the Center’s internet. Hopefully, this will reduce some of our costs (one less bill to pay) and eventually allow us to send the signal to other buildings on our campus. Nick also set us up with a new wifi router (Acess Pint; AP) for the conference room and front office. Instead of using the Emily router, people can use the new connection to WSU Temp using “GoCougs2017” as the password. This doesn’t solve all of our wifi issues, but it’s a start.
Password reset email notifications – and phishing
I couple of posts back I mentioned that Campus would be sending out notices regarding password resets. That was a glitch where the regularly scheduled notices were not going out resulting in many people not changing their passwords as frequently as campus requires. Once they got the system working again, the notices started to go out to the people with the oldest passwords, then eventually caught up to real-time deadlines. I received a notice while on vacation letting me know that my password was due to expire before I returned to work. Very inconvenient timing, but I still managed to get it done.
The problem though is that now there appear to be a new batch of phishing emails with this as a theme – your Network ID is due to expire if you don’t click here to fix it – or some similar wording. To see what a legitimate email notice from campus looks like, take a look at the image below. (click image to enlarge)
Notice that there are no live links within the message. Instead, it shows you where to go to reset your password.
AMS in large conference room
You have probably seen Kelsey’s email regarding the AMS unit. It is unclear whether or not the issue is hardware or software. Hopefully, a solution will be decided on soon.
Campus IT updates & alerts
As I mentioned above, Campus IT has been working hard at moving and/or updating systems on campus. The first major item was redoing the bridging system for AMS. This went off with minimal problems to users. They also moved the AIS platform to the “cloud”. This is the system that runs all the accounting and payroll software. There have been a few associated glitches, but overall, the migration was successful. The one item they have been working on that has been a problem is MyWSU. I keep seeing reports on login issues and access to some of the apps accessed through MyWSU (such as Alive!). They are aware of the issues and are working on them.
Over the holidays I’ve also seen a bunch of emails regarding security updates. The list of updates include:
- Microsoft security updates – these are beyond the normal “Tuesday” updates to fix minor bugs. If you have Auto updates turned on, you should be fine. If you don’t and haven’t updated things since Dec. 12th, now is a good time to do so. (both Windows and Mac)
- Apple security updates – Yes, even Apple computers and mobile devices need to update security periodically. Security updates came out about the same time as Microsoft announced their updates, Dec. 20th.
- Browser updates – Both Google Chrome and Mozzila Thunderbird announced updates for security reasons.
And on top of all these security updates, DHS announced that North Korea has a cyber code unit called “HIDDEN COBRA” that has developed a new Trojan malware called “BANKSHOT”. Sounds like something straight out of a Tom Clancey novel! Network administrators are urged to monitor for any possible related activity and report it to DHS and FBI. Our campus IT security group will be watching out for this for us.
OK – that’s enough for now!