September 12, 2011
Phishing Attacks: How to Spot Fake Emails
Phishing emails often pretend to be from your bank, credit card company, eBay or PayPal. However, you also get legitimate messages from these companies, so how do you tell the real ones from the fakes? Real emails often contain your name and may start “Dear John Smith”, but phishers don’t know you, so fakes have something general like “Dear customer”. If an email isn’t addressed specifically to you, you should suspect it is a fake.
Many phishing emails talk about technical problems that require you to click a link and enter your account details. Banks, eBay, PayPal, and so on, never lose your details and they don’t need to ask you for them. The links in phishing emails point to fake websites with wrong addresses, so check the status bar when the mouse hovers over a link or the URL in Internet Explorer’s address bar if you do actually find yourself on a phishing site. It is best not to click links in emails because fake addresses can be disguised.
Phishers’ response to advice not to click links in emails is to provide a bogus telephone number and ask people to ring the bank instead. An automated response asks you for your account details, which they then use to relieve you of your cash. Another common attribute of phishing scams is poor English – if an email is badly
written it is probably a fake.
The best way to avoid being caught out by phishing scams is never to click links in emails relating to sites that might hold sensitive information about you, such as credit card details. If you get a message supposedly from your bank, eBay or PayPal about a problem, just start Internet Explorer and type the usual address into your web browser. Log on and you will soon see if there really is a problem or not.
If you are in doubt about an email’s legitimacy or think you have inadvertently given away your personal details, contact your bank or the company immediately via contacts on their official websites.
Posted by anna at 5:15 PM | TrackBack
July 31, 2011
DoIT IT Support Changes - Help Desk & AV Moving
Starting this summer, there will be a number of significant changes occurring in the way DoIT provides support to the campus community. The driver for this change is the new Retriever Learning Center (RLC) that will be opening in the Library this fall. The RLC will have a significant technology component and will provide 24-hour space for students. As part of this DoIT is making significant changes to our Helpdesk and establishing a student-focused unit named the Technology Support Center adjacent to the RLC.
This is one of the most exciting and important initiatives for students that has occurred on campus. So, to support the RLC, DoIT will be making the following changes.
First, we are renaming the Help Desk to be called the Technology Support Center, which will be located next to the RLC. This change is primarily designed to provide walk-up support of students, though faculty & staff are welcome, too. Managed by Jamie Harrison, the TSC will work closely with the Library to proactively meet student technology support needs in a much more visible location.
Second, we encourage all students, faculty and staff to search, request and track technical support using the myUMBC Help menu or directly at http://my.umbc.edu/help. In moving student technology support to the Library we will only have two, remaining full-time staff (distributed in the Engineering Bldg.) who are available for faculty-staff support issues. We are exploring possible collaboration with other functional offices, Departmental IT (DIT) support staff, as well as a way faculty might be able to request specially-trained students for one-on-one instructional technology assistance. All DoIT support groups will continue to monitor the primary 5-3838 technical support phone number, however given potential challenges in our capacity to respond immediately, we are working to improve the myUMBC Help interface so you can find, request and track your tech support needs in one location.
Third, to make certain that the technology classrooms in Engineering are properly supported we will be moving the Audio Visual (AV) services group from Academic IV-A 204 to Engineering 020. In addition to continuing to deliver mobile technology carts from this location, AV will oversee support for the computer classrooms in Engineering, including openings and closings.
Finally, to streamline management we are realigning the DoIT organization so that all three of these groups will be under the Instructional Technology and New Media unit led by Asst. VP John Fritz. As with any change, we know there will be some issues that will arise that we need to address. We are committed to working with the campus to make this a success and appreciate your patience while we make this change. If you have questions, suggestions or comments, please email them to John (fritz@umbc.edu) or myself (jack@umbc.edu).
Posted by jack at 4:57 PM
January 15, 2011
Google GMail - Why it Matters
In December, after consultation with the IT Steering Committee, DoIT announced we would move forward with plans to migrate all the remaining UMBC student accounts over to Gmail starting January 10. This is progressing smoothly and will be done by before the spring semester starts.
In a recent post to the Google Enterprise Blog, Google announced that for calendar year 2010 that they Google Mail was available 99.984% of the year. That translates into 84 minutes of downtime for the year, or 7 minutes a month. What is amazing is that this includes scheduled downtime needed for Google to implement new features.
DoIT's goal is to provide the most robust set of IT services possible, whether we provide them directly or integrate third party vendors into our infrastructure. For email, we believe that Google is a great choice for student email and will provide a high quality of service.
Since most faculty and staff continue to remain on UMBC's email infrastructure, the good news is that during the most recent fall six months we have had comparable uptime to Google!
Posted by jack at 7:36 PM | TrackBack
October 1, 2010
Bb Known Issue: Email Sent in HTML Format vs. Plain Text
Over the past month DoIT has received reports from both faculty and students that emails sent through Blackboard contain HTML code. In some instances users have complained that the embedded code makes the body of the email difficult to read. This format is the default setting in Blackboard, and DoIT is unable to change this to plain text at the system level. However, individual users can configure their local mail clients to display incoming email messages in HTML format. Directions for configuring Webmail to view HTML formatted email have been posted to the DoIT Frequently Asked Questions website.