Month: August 2016

Maintenance

PHSC Bridge Replacement Fiber Work

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Maintenance Window: 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM Saturday August 27th
Services Impacted: Network Services for AJH, GSCI, HOLT, and MODC

As part of the Physical Science bridge replacement project, contractors under the direction of FMS will be moving/replacing fiber optic cables providing network service to multiple buildings in the Northeast area of campus: AJH, GSCI, HOLT, and MODC. All network services to affected buildings are expected to go down shortly after 7:00 AM Saturday 8/27, and are expected to be restored by 4:00 PM that day. Both wired and wireless network services will be unavailable during this work; campus telephone systems will be unaffected.

Security

Avoid Phishing Scams

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Phishing scams are attempts by hackers and cybercriminals to steal personal information or hijack computing resources. Phishing scams work by pretending to be important notifications that claim something is wrong with your account that you have to take immediate action to fix. The link provided in the email is intended to trick you into entering your password or other personal information. Once you have provided this information, the attackers use your email account to send thousands of new phishing emails to other potential victims.

Last semester, more than 3,000 CSU, Chico students, faculty, and staff fell victim to phishing scams. Please look very carefully at any email that is asking you to verify your account, or validate your information; it’s most likely a phishing email and should just be deleted. If an email looks suspicious, delete it.

Remember, Chico State will never ask you for your password via email, and we never send official emails from student email accounts.

For more information about recognizing phishing scam emails check out our phishing video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCCA2Sy5Brk or read more about spam and phishing at www.csuchico.edu/isec/basics/spam-and-phishing.shtml.

Additional voluntary Information Security awareness videos are available for all employees at www.csuchico.edu/isec/tools_resources/sans_securing_the_human_security_training.shtml.

If you have questions or concerns, please submit a request at support.csuchico.edu or contact IT Support Services.

phishing-never

Security, Workstations

August Desktop Security Updates Approved for Campus Computers

Posted on by admin

The majority of campus Windows desktops will have updates sent to them in the next day or so. For security reasons, campus computers are given an installation deadline for monthly patches. The installation deadline this month is Thursday, September 1st at 5:00 PM. On Thursday at 5:00 PM, if you have not installed this month’s patches, they will automatically begin installing, and when done, may reboot your computer. If your computer is off at the time of the deadline, updates will begin installing the next time you log in, and when done, may reboot your computer.

 We highly recommend that you install the patches as soon as you are prompted to do so, before the installation deadline. This way, you can be present when the computer needs to restart and you have more control over the restart timing, allowing you to save any open work. If you ignore the update messages you run the risk of updates being applied while you are not present and potentially having your computer restart and possibly even losing unsaved work.

In addition to Microsoft updates, there may be updates for Adobe Flash, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Oracle Java, and other 3rd party applications. These updates will require you to close all your browser windows. Please save any work in your browsers before doing so.

Maintenance, Telephone, Voicemail

Campus Phone System Maintenance

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Maintenance Window: 6:00 AM to 8:00 AM Monday August 15th
Services Impacted: Campus Telephones and Voicemail

During this maintenance window, network elements supporting the campus phone system will be replaced and upgraded. Impact of this work may include: disconnected calls, inability to make/receive calls, and inability to access voicemail. Taske and call accounting systems may be unavailable as well during the transition. Any such interruptions should last no longer than 15 minutes each.

Maintenance

Data Warehouse Server Maintenance

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Maintenance Window: 5:00 PM Thursday August 4th to 12:00 PM Sunday August 7th
Services Impacted: Data Warehouse Servers
Anticipated Availability:  12:00 PM Sunday August 7th

The servers that host the database RDSPRD (campus reporting database) used by several applications on campus will become unavailable during this maintenance window. These applications include:

  • Campus Reporting Solutions
    • Insight
    • CRA
    • Hyperion
  • Campus-wide Web Applications
    • University Catalog
    • Class Schedule
    • Campus Directory
    • Financial Aid/Summer Aid Applications
    • Accessibility Resource Center Portal
  • Multiple Departmental Web applications – Maintenance window is primarily outside business hours, so impact to departments should be minimal

Server maintenance is required to ensure the current campus Reporting and Data Warehousing systems can continue to operate in the future.  Hardware has come to the end of its lifetime and requires replacement.