WML Tech Updates

In the interest of promoting better network security and increasing awareness of possible security threats, ITS asks that you review the article below and distribute to your colleagues.

FBI WARNS PUBLIC OF E-MAIL SCAMS

Washington, D.C. — The FBI today warned the public against three separate Internet scams that continue to flourish through spam e-mails. The warning comes after the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received a rising number of complaints from citizens over the past few weeks.

In one scam, an e-mail recipient receives an electronic greeting card containing malware (malicious software). The cards, which are also referred to as e-cards or postcards, are being sent via spam. Like many other Internet fraud schemes, the perpetrators use social engineering tactics to entice the victim, claiming the card is from a family member or friend. Although there have been variations in the spam message and attached malware, generally the spam directs the recipient to click the link provided in the email to view their e-card.
Upon clicking the link, the recipient is unknowingly taken to a malicious web page.

In another scam, fraudulent e-mails misrepresent the FBI and/or Director Robert S. Mueller III and give the appearance of legitimacy due to the usage of pictures of the FBI Director, seal, letter head, and/or banners. The types of schemes utilizing the Director’s name and/or FBI are lottery endorsements and inheritance notifications.

The third is spam e-mail which claim to be from an official of the U.S. military sent on behalf of American soldiers stationed overseas. The scam e-mails vary in content; however, the general theme of each is to request personal information and/or funds from the individual receiving the e-mail.

These spam e-mail messages are hoaxes and should be immediately deleted. Consumers need to be wary of unsolicited e-mails that request them to take any action even if that means just clicking on an attachment. It is possible that by “double-clicking” on attachments to these messages, recipients will cause malicious software — e.g., viruses, keystroke loggers, or other Trojan horse programs — to be launched on their computers.

For further information on computer safety tips please visit the FBI website and the IC3 website.

If you have any questions, please contact ITS Partner Support at its-partner@vanderbilt.edu or call 615-343-9999.

For more information about upcoming and recent outages, see: http://its.vanderbilt.edu/outage.php

For more information about anti-virus efforts at Vanderbilt, see: http://its.vanderbilt.edu/antivirus

On August 1st, Vanderbilt University will have a new look and feel to its homepage!  There were many people involved in the redesign efforts, and many opportunities for folks across campus to provide feedback.

Yes, I had several strong opinions as usual.  I’m glad that so many people’s suggestions were taken into consideration or implemented.

I am not sure yet as to when the new Owen webiste will be going live, but I’m sure they will announce it.

Vanderbilt Information Technology Services (ITS) has partnered with Joost to offer free TV via the internet. Joost is an innovative offering that will change the way you watch TV. You’ll have loads of interactive programming available on your computer for FREE!

You can watch it anywhere in the world with a broadband connection. It’s easy to use and interactive. It even has chat and instant messaging.

You’ll be able to watch hundreds of full-length shows from some of the world’s best-known channels, including lots of foreign language programming.

Joost is now available to the Vanderbilt Community in beta format. Take part in testing Joost and give your feedback on ways to make it even better. All you need to start is your invitation.

Windows XP or Vista with 500 MB free disc space or an Intel-based Macintosh is required, along with a broadband connection.

Access Joost support at http://www.joost.com/support/

Vanderbilt ITS does not provide Joost support.

For more information about Joost, see Joost FAQs and Knowledge Base.

Learn more about Joost at Vanderbilt.

Vanderbilt ITS’s partnership with Joost is part of our effort to provide legal programming alternatives to Vanderbilt students.

Barry Dombro, the director of Owen IT, will be out of the office from June 11th through August 3rd, 2007. During this time, Jason Reusch will serve as the interim Director of the IT Department.

If you still need technical support, please continue to contact Rachel as normal, and she’ll get in contact with the appropriate Owen IT person as needed.

Thanks!

You may or may not have encountered some members of the Owen community who are already using Microsoft Office 2007, the latest version.  The library is still currently using Office 2003.  As Laura experienced this morning at the circ desk, she was unable to open an attachment sent by one of the 3rd floor staff who was already upgraded to the latest version of Office.  But have no fear!  There is something you can download in order to open these pesky version 2007 files that appear to be incompatible and makes your Word program cough at you.

Download this patch and install it.  Your Office 2003 should then play friendly with it’s newer cousin, Office 2007.  (This compatibility pack works for Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.)

Have questions?  Please see Rachel, or ask any of the Owen ITS folks.

A message from Jason Reusch, Associate Director of Owen ITS:

For several months, with the support of the dean’s office, we have been collaborating with Vanderbilt University Central Information Technology Services to enhance the reliability, availability, performance, and disaster recovery readiness of Owen’s IT services.

As part of this effort, we will be relocating the twenty-eight servers that provide all Owen IT services, including email, blackboard, admissions, external web presence, and OCNS.

We are planning to complete the majority of the move during the week following graduation, May 13-19, 2007. Although we will try to minimize the inconvenience, there will be service interruptions during this time. As we nail down specific dates and times we will publish them to the community and provide as much advance notice as possible.

We will be moving our systems to the recently expanded and renovated data center at the Hill Center on the Peabody Campus. This data center offers facilities and services to the University that are unattainable at our scale.

The move to brings several immediate and future benefits.

• 24×7x365 on site monitoring by a university employee
• Redundant power, networking, and climate control systems
• A more robust backup infrastructure including weekly full backup of all systems taken off-site to a secure location
• A three-year hardware life cycle replacement plan to ensure consistent, reliable performance and manufacturer warranty and support
• Storage Area Network (SAN) data storage to improve backup and recovery time
• A shared-storage VMWare environment, which provides high availability for individual server level failure. All but four of our systems will live as virtual machines in the VMWare environment.

If you have any questions or concerns about this change, please send them to Jason.

The recent tragedy at Virginia Tech has highlighted the importance of rapid and accurate communications during emergency situations, and particularly the value of cell phone text messaging to relay important information. MobileVU, Vanderbilt’s text messaging service, has now added an emergency alert list for all students, faculty and staff. This list will only be used to deliver urgent security information directly to your cell phone in the event of a campus emergency.

There are two ways to sign up for MobileVU:

Online: Visit http://www.vanderbilt.edu/news/mobilevu< and complete the form. Be sure to include your cell phone number and select your mobile carrier and the MobileVU Emergency List.

Over the air: From your phone, send a text (SMS) message with the text VANDY to 27538.

In both cases, a confirmation message will be sent to your cell phone.

All students, faculty and staff are encouraged to enroll in MobileVU, and to keep your information current. With 330 acres, 233 buildings, and as many as 40,000 people on campus during a busy work day, reaching every individual quickly presents a constant challenge. MobileVU is an important addition to the existing communications channels, which include: http://www.vanderbilt.edu, phone, e-mail, broadcast voice mail, warning sirens, building contacts and loudspeakers.

The safety of our campus community is Vanderbilt’s highest priority. Please take a moment to sign up for MobileVU so you can get critical information when it is most important.

Changes have been made to the revised homepage based on comments thus far.  Please see the Vanderbilt Homepage Redesign blog for a pdf image of the latest redesign and for more info.

They would really like some additional feedback, so please leave a comment!  Thanks