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IT – News & Announcements

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Michigan Tech’s 2014 Information Security & Compliance Survey

Posted by ashley under Security

Michigan Tech is required to comply with a wide variety of federal and state laws, regulations, and contractual agreements with respect to information security and privacy. The University needs your continued support in maintaining an accurate inventory of the University’s information assets.

The annual survey provides the University with the necessary information needed to ensure that Michigan Tech is in compliance with security and privacy requirements. The survey not only helps identify what types of training University employees should have but it also helps determine the effectiveness of the University’s Information Security Awareness Training Program.

Employees can expect to see the survey this week. On average it should take 10 minutes or less to complete.

If you have questions regarding this process or the survey, contact Ashley Sudderth, Chief Information Compliance Officer, ashley@mtu.edu.

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Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Upcoming telephone system software upgrade

Posted by kcsmith under Telephone & Voice Services

IT Telecommunications will begin upgrading the Mitel telephone system software at 7:00am on Saturday, March 8, 2014. The upgrade should be completely in place by 7:00am Monday, March 10, 2014. During the upgrade process, users may experience the loss or degradation of telephone services for as long as two hours. The service interruption may happen at any time during the process, and it may happen more than once. Affected systems include all Mitel VoIP telephones, voicemail services, analog phones, fax machines, and any other equipment that uses telephone lines. DSL network services should not be affected.

Anyone planning to work in their offices on the weekend of March 8-9 should plan for potential telephone service interruptions.

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Friday, February 28, 2014

USG/GSG IT Open Form Materials

Posted by dan under Computing on Campus, From the Director

Below are links to accompanying materials from the presentation that was recently given at the USG/GSG IT Open Forum on February 27, 2014.

Please contact Dan de Beaubien with any questions.

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Thursday, January 30, 2014

Phishing Training Program Starting

Posted by ashley under Security

Michigan Tech is always looking for new and innovative ways to improve information security and protect the University’s sensitive information. As part of the University’s ongoing Security and Compliance Training initiatives, Information Technology Services (ITS) will be launching a recurring Phishing Training Program. Phishing attacks are becoming more advanced and are a serious threat. The University needs your help in protecting University networks, systems, and data.

Phishing is the act of stealing information such as usernames, passwords, bank account details, credit card numbers and other valuable information by impersonating as a trustworthy sender. Phishing emails may appear to be from popular social media sites, payroll services, or even the University’s IT department to try and “trick” unsuspecting recipients. These emails can be extremely convincing, such as a message from Amazon saying that your credit card has been declined, or from Visa saying that they have detected unauthorized activity on your account. The messages frequently feature logos, coloring schemes, and company motto’s that make the email even more believable.

The goal of this training program is to continually improve end users ability to identify and properly handle phishing emails. You will receive mock phishing emails from time-to-time to help you learn how to avoid the real ones. If you accidentally click on the link in the simulated phishing message, you will be shown a brief training web page that will give you the skills and techniques you need stay “off the hook” in the future.

We thank you for your help and attention to this important security initiative.  If you have any questions or concerns relating to the Phishing Training Program, please contact David Hale (ddh@mtu.edu) or Ashley Sudderth (ashley@mtu.edu).

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Monday, January 20, 2014

Michigan Tech Software Distribution Center Launched

Posted by seackerm under Software

Michigan Tech IT has launched a new site for students, faculty and staff to download software packages available to them for installation on their personal computers. Software includes Matlab, AutoCad, ChemBioDraw, EndNote, Microsoft Office, and more.

To see a list of available software, please login to www.it.mtu.edu/downloads, utilizing your Michigan Tech ISO username and password.

Software provided through this site is either:

  • Licensed by Michigan Tech and provided at no cost to you
  • Available for purchase at a discount under a contract with the vendor
  • Provided at no cost by the vendor to all academics
  • Freely available software that is commonly used

Your customized software list is based on your status (student, faculty or staff) and program; certain software packages are major-specific, e.g., College of Engineering.

If you have any questions or issues with the site or any software packages, please contact IT User Services at it-help@mtu.edu or 906-487-1111.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Unix File Permissions on Home Directories

Posted by Joshua Myles under Computing on Campus

This information pertains primarily to Linux and Mac OS customers. If you access files only from Windows computers, you can skip this one.

The new storage system to which home directories were recently migrated stores and manages Unix (Linux and Mac OS computers using NFS) and Windows file permissions differently than the old system. In the new system, each file or directory has a single set of ownership and permissions, whereas the old system maintained two sets, one for Unix and one for Windows.

As a result, sometimes permissions appear differently than you would expect, especially from a Unix computer, because they only approximate the richer set of permissions (access control lists, or ACLs) that are actually assigned. This happened when we applied an ACL to home directories to correct a file downloading issue with some Windows web browsers, causing extra executable permissions to appear. If you are primarily a Unix user, this can be annoying at best.

On Thursday, 02 Jan 2014, we changed how the storage system handles setting permissions from Unix computers, which now allows customers to directly set the desired permissions instead of permissions that result from any ACLs that are assigned. You can accomplish this with the ‘chmod’ command or any of the graphical file managers in Linux or Mac OS. If you would like assistance with this, please contact us at it-help@mtu.edu or 906-487-1111.

We are also developing additional documentation on these and other storage related topics, and will post again when those materials are ready.

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Friday, December 20, 2013

Michigan Tech IT Security Information [Please Read]

Posted by dan under Computing on Campus

This is official information from Michigan Tech Information Technology Services.

A number of computers on campus have been compromised and a number of username/password combinations have been recorded and sent off campus.
If you have received notification that you need to reset your password *please proceed immediately* to login.mtu.edu and do so.
If you have used the same password for other sites you should reset those as well.
Please note that this compromise involved a number of linux servers and that SSH (secure shell) access to them may be temporary blocked or rerouted as those machines are being secured.
You will also find notices related to this at:
If you have any questions about this, please contact IT Help at it-help@mtu.edu or (906) 487-1111

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Recent phishing attacks against Michigan Tech

Posted by ddh under Security

* REMINDER: NEVER submit your password over email. Michigan Tech will never ask for your credentials over email.

With the holiday season upon us, we are seeing an expected increase in the number of phishing attacks against campus. Hackers tend to take advantage of holidays to launch these attacks for a number of reasons. It’s a time of year when students, faculty, and staff are likely away from campus and do not have any in-person support. It’s also a time when most IT support is running at a lower staffing level. Both of these combine to create lowered awareness of attacks and slower response times to compromised accounts.

These messages will often appear as legitimate messages warning you of some time critical process that requires you to verify you identity. Recently these have mentioned that you email access may be revoked. Other examples of phishing attacks can be found at http://www.security.mtu.edu/email-security/.

We would like to remind our users that Michigan Tech will never ask you to put your password in an email message. We do not ever need to know your password. If we do need to verify your identity we may direct you to a University website ending in .mtu.edu, most likely https://www.login.mtu.edu or https://banweb.mtu.edu.

If you do receive a message asking for your credentials, please be sure to mark it in Gmail as a phishing attempt. This will help Google identify similar messages and will also allow them to remove or flag the message in other users accounts. Instructions on marking the message as a phishing attempt can be found on the IT Blog at:

http://blogs.mtu.edu/it/2013/10/04/phishing-attacks-keep-your-information-safe/

If you do accidentally reply to a phishing attempt or fill in a form on a non-MTU website you should immediately change your ISO password by visiting https://www.login.mtu.edu and selecting the “Change your MTU ISO password” option. You should also report the potential disclosure to it-help@mtu,edu as we can ensure that any connections that the attacker may have established with your credentials are terminated.

We appreciate your awareness and diligence in dealing with these situations.

-Dave Hale
Sr. Security Officer
IT/Michigan Technological University

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Monday, December 16, 2013

Wireless Lounges, 2.0 – We want your help!

Posted by Amy Blake under Computing on Campus

The second phase of wireless lounge conversion will begin in January 2014. We want your help! We’re looking for ideas on everything from furnishings to technology. Interested in collaborating with us? Get in touch! Contact us at it-help@mtu.edu or 487-1111.

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Friday, December 13, 2013

IT Customer Outreach Program

Posted by tomas under Customer Support

Information Technology is implementing a customer outreach program in an effort to better address the needs of the Michigan Tech campus computing community. It is a priority of IT to understand the current scope of campus service and support, identify where adjustments need to be made, and take the necessary steps for improvement based on users’ input.

The IT Campus Liaison will be working with departments to gather information and identifying candidates to interview as an initial step in improving the computer support on campus and capturing the computing needs most important to the success of the University.

For more information on this program or how you can get involved, please contact IT at it-help@mtu.edu or 487-1111.

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906-487-1885

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