ITSpotlight is designed to keep the campus up to date on ITS activities and services.
For more information, contact ITS at ftc_help@siue.edu
Faculty planning to use Blackboard for summer courses are encouraged to request course shells as soon as possible to avoid delays. Please allow 3 to 5 business days for us to process your request. Be sure to check the ITS suggested "Start of Semester Activities" web page to get a smooth start on your summer course.
For more information, contact ITS at ftc_help@siue.edu
ITS suggests the following end-of-semester Blackboard activities:
Visit the "End-of-Semester Activities" web page for more information, or contact ITS at ftc_help@siue.edu.
ITS employee Laura McCann received the Susan York Award last month for her outstanding work in the University’s Geography Department. Each spring semester candidates are nominated by faculty and voted on by a committee. The student’s GPA, classroom performance, and other academic contributions are considered in the process. Please join us in congratulating Laura on this accomplishment!
The 90/10 rule of computer security states that 10% of security safeguards should be technical and 90% user related. As technical security has improved, our knowledge and habits as users are often left as the easiest route for illicit access to a network.
One common method of trying to gain access to a network is known as phishing. Merriam-Webster defines phishing as a scam by which an e-mail user is duped into revealing personal or confidential information, such as usernames and passwords, which the scammer can use illicitly. These types of attacks are on the rise and most users will encounter them fairly frequently. The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) documents between 25,000 and 30,000 unique phishing e-mail campaigns each month. Each campaign can consist of millions of individual emails sent in an attempt to gain access to a user’s account.
There was a time that phishing attempts were easy to spot. A mixture of bad grammar and sloppy formatting combined to create an almost comical scam. Phishing attempts have evolved over the years to the point that they look as official as many legitimate emails. Logos, terminology, and employee names obtained from official University websites are used to create emails that, at first glance, look legitimate.
In the next few issues of the ITSpotlight, we will be highlighting some common strategies for avoiding these scams. In the meantime, please remember that ITS will never ask you for your password and you should never enter your SIUE username and password on an external website. For more information, contact ITS at help@siue.edu.
The rollout of Hannon Hill's Cascade Server has been postponed until the end of spring semester. Cascade Server will replace Luminis as the University's content management system; current web pages on the SIUE server will transfer to the new system automatically. ITS will notify users via email when training times and dates have been finalized.
For additional information about the new CMS, contact Curt Price at cprice@siue.edu.
