Information Technology Updates
In the recent "Sextortion" campaign, attackers used one of the victim's actual compromised passwords to try to convince the victim that they had access to the victim's system and had recorded video of them watching pornography. The hacks were false; in reality, the attackers used old data breaches and had only passwords, names, and email addresses with which to work. Nonetheless, the threat of potential exposure of claimed browsing habits was an enticing lead-in to "give me some money". Five key takeaways to avoid being caught by phishing:
- Avoid clicking on links and attachments in email
- Urgency should be a giant red flag
- Don't re-use passwords
- Don't respond to spam or phishing emails
- Don't pay off extortionists
Read more at https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/08/the-year-targeted-phishing-went-mainstream/
Other universities are reporting a new phishing effort that starts with an email message from the university president containing a malicious PDF. The PDF has a link that goes to a fictitious "Microsoft Reader" that requires credentials to access. In our case, the credentials would be CatID of course.
Subject: [ACTION REQUIRED] <university> Revised and Updated Business Integrity & Policy Guidelines For All Employees
Please forward any examples of this or similar messages to security@uni.edu and phishing@uni.edu
Because I routinely recommend KeePass as a good choice for a standalone password safe, I think it's important to bring this fake KeePass site to your attention.
A French security researcher has stumbled upon an adware delivery scheme that involves clone websites that use legitimately-looking domain names to trick victims into downloading famous apps, but which are actually laced with adware.
The first of these websites was discovered three days ago by Ivan Kwiatkowski. This website was located at keepass.fr, a domain name trying to pass as the app's official site located at keepass.info.
The complete article is available at https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/fake-websites-for-keepass-7zip-audacity-others-found-pushing-adware/
Outage Date & Times: Thursday August 2nd at 12:00 a.m. through Tuesday August 7th at 5:00 p.m.
UNI's existing on-campus Blackboard Learn System (eLearning) will be fully migrated to Blackboard Inc.'s cloud based offering known as SaaS (Software as a Service) from August 2-7, 2018. On August 1, 2018 at 11:59 p.m. CDT, UNI's Blackboard Learn System will be turned OFF for migration and will NOT be available to users during this extended maintenance period. For this migration, we will be doing a full migration of data: meaning all the existing content and entire database records will be moved to SaaS. For more information, please visit our Blackboard Learn SaaS webpage.
Outage Date & Times: Friday, August 10th at 6:00 p.m. through Saturday, August 11th at 6:30 a.m.
The UPS in the Curris Business Building data center will be replaced on August 10th & 11th. This replacement requires a full data center power outage and many major systems on campus will be unavailable. In an effort to minimize the impact on the campus community, the power outage will occur Friday evening August 10th after 6:00 p.m. through early Saturday morning. All systems are expected to be back online by 6:30 a.m. Saturday, August 11th. Internet access to/from campus and access to Google Email will be available during the outage.
The following systems will remain active during the outage:
- Centralized Authentication for off campus hosted systems
- Internet Access to/from campus
- Wireless Access on campus
- Campus Web Cluster (www.uni.edu) and subsites
- Google G Suite (email, docs, etc). ** Users will need to go directly to www.gmail.com or mail.google.com to login. Any link that points to www.uni.edu/email will not be functional during this outage.
- eLearning (Blackboard)
- Active Directory Authentication & DNS
- Voice calls & Voice mail
- UNI Bookstore servers (to serve the State Fair)
- Electronic Door Access Systems
- Public Safety related systems
- Service Hub
Services that will be UNAVAILABLE
- My Universe Portal
- Peoplesoft Campus Solutions
- Student Center
- Advisor Center
- Faculty Center
- Online Application for Admission
- Online Course Lookup
- eBusiness Forms and Self-Service
- Self-Service Java Applications
- Online Directory
- Document Imaging - All OnBase Clients (Web/Unity)
- FAMIS
- Data Warehouse - OBI Applications - Analytics
- ProTrav
Planned Timeline
- 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Systems and Services in CBB are shut down
- 7:00 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. Power cut to CBB Data center
- 7:15 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. New UPS installation, system checks, and startup
- 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. Power back on, bring systems and services back online
The Department of Educational Technology and Media Services (ETMS) hosted this year’s Regent Day at UNI on May 30th. ETMS’s staff and their counterparts from the University of Iowa and Iowa State University met to share experiences, successes and challenges.
Main discussions and activities were centered around topics of Learning Spaces Technology, Online Testing/Proctoring, Student Response System, Badging, and Online Textbooks. Updates and inputs were also exchanged on Learning Management Systems, Digital Media Storage Solutions, Lecture Capturing programs, and Lynda online training site.
The successful day was concluded with show and tell groups presenting Hololens, Jamboard, SVSI, and Meetio. The three departments will continue to have this yearly event, in addition to their ongoing communication, to optimize services, relationships, and efficiency for the three regent universities.
Starting on July 16th, 2018, UNI will begin to turn off Google accounts for students, faculty, and staff not currently enrolled in classes or employed at UNI. However, if you graduated from UNI, received a certificate or other endorsement, you are eligible for a free UNI Alumni Google account. For more information and to sign up for your Alumni Account, visit the IT support article UNI Alumni Account.
Some important things to note:
- Your CatID credentials will continue to function for other resources at UNI like the MyUNIverse Portal (for checking unofficial transcripts or requesting official transcripts).
- If you have used your UNI Google account as your primary contact information for any online services outside of UNI (Amazon.com, Facebook, Etc) you will need to update those records prior to July 16th to avoid interruptions in service with those sites.
- You must migrate any personal data in your UNI Google account you wish to keep prior to July, 16th, 2018. For help and assistance in migrating your data, please see the IT support article on downloading your personal data.
- If you will not be eligible for a new alumni domain account and would like to continue receiving emails and newsletters from the University of Northern Iowa Alumni Association, please update them with your new email address. Send an email to info@unialum.org or visit their updating contact information form.
As always, if you have questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to get in touch with the IT Service Desk at 319-273-5555 or via email at servicedesk@uni.edu.
Katie O’Brien teaches American Sign Language in the Communication Disorders program at UNI. During her classes, nobody talks, not even Katie! The only means of communication in the room are signing or writing. In order to provide content, she has learned how to use the SMARTBoard to its fullest capacity. She is able to have items prepared ahead of class for presentation with the flexibility to write on the screen as the class progresses or questions arise
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In some classroom evaluation models, the level of noise in a room is used to measure the engagement of the students and the interactions with the instructor. In Katie’s room, the only sounds are from taps on the SMARTboard screen as things are displayed and manipulated by Katie. Despite the lack of noise, the student in the class remain very engaged through Katie’s teaching and the use of the technology.
Katie has been using the SMARTBoard for 14 years and would love to share her experiences with others who are interested in this technology.
In fact, she will be presenting a session on this use at the Technology-Enhanced Teaching and Learning conference on May 11th from 10:10-10:50 in her normal classroom CAC 116!
College of Education recently completed a new series of lunch and learn presentations by faculty, called “Big Ideas Small Bytes”. Six presentations were organized by their Educational Technologist, Farah Kashef, and delivered by the faculty, and one graduate student, from various areas of the college. The focus of the series was to share experiences on newly adopted pedagogical approaches that lead to more student engagement and learning _ Big Ideas. There was usually a technology piece that was tied in the experience being presented _hence, “Small Bytes”; pun intended? Maybe! For the TPACK fans, this was more focused on the TPK segment of the concept.
Although the presentations were in an informal environment (most were in the faculty lounge area of the Schindler Education Center), all were exceptionally of high quality, meaningful, and thought-provoking where student learning was first and technology second. College of Education will continue to have the Big Ideas Small Bytes series in the upcoming fall semester. The spring presentations were:
1- Beginning with the end in mind... utilizing technology as a tool; by Dr. Kim Huckstadt
2- Guiding Students to High-Quality Resources: Rod Library research Guides; by Anne Marie Gruber and Katelyn Browne
3- Using free and open-source game development platform, ARIS, to enhance lessons; by Dr. Dana Atwood-Blaine
4- Making professors' implicit expectations explicit to their students through more transparent assignments: A micro-workshop; by Drs. Elana Joram, Shuaib Meacham, and Susan Hill
5- A Techno-Illiterate Septuagenarian's Use of Media Tools; by Dr. Tom Davis
6- Steven’s Journey: The Evolution of Technology for Guiding a Career Path; by Steven Blair –Graduate student.
Over the coming months, Information Technology will be rolling out an additional feature for the campus notification system called Alertus. Alertus is a desktop notification client that works in concert with the UNI Alert system. When a UNI Alert is issued, those issuing the alert have the option to include Alertus as a notification step. This will send a full-screen pop up informational window to desktop and laptop computers that have the Alertus notification client installed. The client will be installed for digital signage computers, classrooms, computer labs, and will be available for your office computer as well. The following schedule gives an approximation of when the Alertus client will be rolled out where:
- Alertus will be installed for all digital signage by April 13th
- Alertus will be available for you to install on your office desktop or laptop via Software Center (Windows) or Self Service (Mac) by April 13th
- Alertus will be installed for classroom computers after the Spring 2018 semester has come to a close - the week of May 7th
For more information on the Alertus Notification Client, please see the following website: https://it.uni.edu/services/alertus-notification-client
If you have questions, comments, or concerns, please contact Information Technology Service Desk at 273-5555 or via email at servicedesk@uni.edu.
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