OIT performs routine maintenance on servers and systems every Sunday from 8 a.m. to noon. Many IT services may be offline intermittently during this time. Network access and computing resources availability (Banner, E-Learning, Exchange server, etc.) may also be affected. Since this is a low-usage period, fewer UA customers will be impacted. For questions, contact the IT Service Desk at (205) 348-5555 or itsd@ua.edu.
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UA to Host Technology Leadership Conference for Students
April 25, 2012 – The University of Alabama will host the 33rd Annual Alabama Technology Student Association State Conference involving competition for middle and high-school students Tuesday and Wednesday, May 1-2, at the Bryant Conference Center.
More than 500 students from schools throughout the state are expected to participate in more than 40 events held at the Bryant Conference Center. A sample of scheduled events includes computer-aided design, carbon-dioxide-powered dragsters, inventions and innovations, flight endurance, structural engineering and a Jeopardy-style technology bowl.
“You will see our students working with robotics, learning about aerospace technology, constructing motorized vehicles, and using sophisticated electronics during this conference,” said Ben Scheierman, TSA state director. “TSA students earn scholarships, prepare for college and high-paying careers, and assist their local communities by participating in national service projects.”
Top winners in each of this year’s conference competition categories will be eligible to represent Alabama at the 2012 National TSA Conference in Nashville, Tenn., June 21-25.
Participating schools include: Athens High School, Baldwin County High School, Bay Minette Middle School, Brewbaker Technology Magnet High School, Columbiana Middle School, Decatur High School, Eastwood Middle School, Fairhope Middle School, Florence Middle School, Floyd Middle School, Greenville High School, Hewitt-Trussville High School, Hewitt-Trussville Middle School, Homewood Middle School, Mountain Brook Junior High School, Oxford High School, Piedmont High School, Piedmont Middle School, Pizitz Middle School, Pleasant Grove High School, Thompson Middle School, and Tuscaloosa Magnet Middle School.
UA’s College of Engineering is hosting and assisting with overall event coordination.
TSA, a national organization founded in 1967, is devoted to preparing America’s youth for careers in technology and engineering-based occupations.This organization has more than 200,000 members throughout the United States. Alabama has approximately 2,880 members.
In 1837, The University of Alabama became one of the first five universities in the nation to offer engineering classes. Today, UA’s fully accredited College of Engineering has more than 3,300 students and more than 100 faculty. In the last eight years, students in the College have been named USA Today All-USA College Academic Team members, Goldwater, Hollings, Portz and Truman scholars.
CONTACT: Adam Jones, engineering public relations, 205/348-6444, acjones12@eng.ua.edu
SOURCE: Ben Scheierman, TSA State Director, 334/242-9112, bscheier@alsde.edu
Microsoft Tech Support Phone Social Engineer Attempt
April 19, 2012 – ISSUE: OIT received a question concerning an old fashion phone social engineering attempt. Social engineering is an old technique that usually involved a phone call to capture information rather than what we see today via email and call “phishing” attacks.
One of our doctors in the Medical Center received a call where the caller was claiming to be from Microsoft Tech Support. The caller indicated MS Tech Support had received information that his computer was significantly infected. They were there to help. If he was close to his computer they could direct him on what was needed to be done to clean his computer.
WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?
If you receive a suspicious call like this, ask for a name and phone number which will usually cause them to hang up. That was the case with this call. Tell them you want their contact information for your technical support team to work directly with them to resolve the problem. Do not give them any access to your machine, nor provide them with any login credentials. In some cases they may be using you to gain further information about a possible different target. If you do receive a call like this, please send Ashley Ewing (ashley.ewing@ua.edu) the details in an email.
HOW CAN I TELL THIS IS A FAKE?
Some social engineer attempts are easy to detect, others are not.
Microsoft Technical Support will never contact you directly on a cold call.
Always be suspicious of an unexpected cold phone call asking for access to your machine or to your login credentials. You can always take a name and number, plus a ticket number if available from the individual calling, then call the service desk (348-5555), or your local support organization to verify the individual and make sure they do have a ticket to work on your machine.
Remember, Microsoft Technical Support will never call you directly in an unsolicited manner.
New Mac Trojan Discovered
April 16, 2012 – A new Mac trojan has be detected called SabPub. It looks like it is spreading through Word documents and Java. For more information , please visit: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57414516-83/new-mac-os-x-trojan-unearthed-call-it-sabpub/?tag=txt;title.
Banner Bundle Upgrade to Production – Sunday, April 15th
April 10, 2012 – The Office of Information Technology (OIT) announces the Banner Bundle Upgrade will be moved to the Production environment on Sunday, April 15th from 7:00am- NOON.
When will the scheduled down time occur?
OIT will conduct the scheduled down time Sunday, April 15th from 7:00am- NOON
What services will be affected?
While myBama will be available, the channels within myBama that access Banner will not. For most users, these channels include Self-Service and Administrative Systems.
What do I do in the case of an emergency?
The University of Alabama Police Department will have continuous access to Banner information during the scheduled down time. If additional emergency access is needed, please contact the IT Service Desk at (205) 348-5555 or itsd@ua.edu.
Newegg Phishing Attack
April 9,2012 – ISSUE: OIT received questions concerning a NewEgg Phishing email sent to several hundred users. It is an attempt to steal your ID and password and also possibly an attempt to infect your machine with malicious code.
WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?
If you received this email, please delete it. If you successfully went to the link in the message, please change your ID and Password (if requested to provide an ID and password) and, do a full virus scan on your computer. If you need, please contact the IT Service Desk at 348-5555.
HOW CAN I TELL THIS IS A FAKE?
Some phishing attempts are easy to detect, others are not as easy.
Did you recently make a recent purchase on the NewEgg site and provided this email address as your “my account” email address with New Egg.
If you really did make a purchase at New Egg, closely check your account number and sales number to make sure you have your legitimate email notice.
A “Payment Charged” email would never be sent to multiple recipients. A close look at the “Live Chat” link and the “Contact Us Page” among other links, send you to a site unrelated to New Egg. Several of the links on the site actually send you back to the main New Egg web site which makes the email look legitimate.
Finally, this is an attempt to lure you to a website that will attempt to steal your login credentials and possibly infect your computer with malicious code.
Phishing Message:
Contains a nice HTML graphic with some legitimate links back to New Egg and some that send you to a site not related to New Egg.
The text in the HTML window shows:
Customer ID: xxxx.xxx@ua.edu
Account Number: 27703472
Dear Customer,
Thank you for shopping at Newegg.com.
We are happy to inform you that your order (Sales Order Number: 122341640) has been successfully charged to your AMEX and order verification is now complete.
If you have any questions, please use our Live Chat function or visit our Contact Us Page.
Once You Know, You Newegg.
Your Newegg.com Customer Service Team
Fake Malware Application
April 6, 2012 – Smart Fortress 2012 is a fake malware application that attempts to convince users that their systems have been comprised. Please click the link below to see screen shots of what the program looks like.
http://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?showtopic=107384
If you believe your system has been infected, please contact the IT Service Desk at (205) 348-5555 or itsd@ua.edu.
MAC Flashback Malware
April 6, 2012 -
As of today, the “Flashback” Trojan malware has infected an estimated 600,000 Apple computers. This malware can install itself with no user interaction, exploiting a Java vulnerability.
What exactly is Flashback?
Flashback is a form of malware designed to grab passwords and other information from users through their Web browser and other applications such as Skype. A user typically mistakes it for a legitimate browser plug-in while visiting a malicious Web site. At that point, the software installs code designed to gather personal information and send it back to remote servers. In its most recent incarnations, the software can install itself without user interaction.
What is the fix?
Java security fixes are only available on Mac OS X 10.6.8 and later using the built-in apple software update utility, so if you’re running OS X 10.5 or earlier, you will still be vulnerable. Apple has stopped supplying software updates for these operating systems.
The Ars Technica link below links to instructions on how to detect if a system is already infected. That process is not user-friendly, though, as it requires dropping into Terminal and running some Unix commands. Please contact your area’s computer support for assistance.
At this time OIT Security is investigating ways to identify infected machines and to protect campus machines from the malware activity.
Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol Exploit
March 20, 2012 – Be sure you have the latest Microsoft patches from last week so that your machine is not vulnerable to a crash. There is an exploit out that can cause a remote bluescreen over remote desktop connection and yous machine is vulnerable if you have not installed the updates that Microsoft released last week.
Center Will Make UA ‘Nerve Center’ for Water Research
February 21, 2012 – Ground was broken on the University of Alabama campus Tuesday morning for a structure federal officials are calling the national “nerve center” for water research.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Water Center will serve as a central location for collaboration between academic institutions across the country and the more than 20 federal agencies involved in critical water research.
UA trustees approved construction of the 60,000-square-foot structure in June 2011. The water center will be located at 300 Hackberry Lane, on a lot between UA’s Riverside residential community and the Bryce Hospital campus.
The center is expected to be completed by 2014 and will be paid for by NOAA, which is leasing the property from UA. After that June trustees meeting, UA Vice President for Research Joe Benson said NOAA has just under $25 million set aside for the total project budget.
After the ground breaking Tuesday morning, Gary Carter, NOAA’s Director for Hydrologic Development, said the National Water Center will assist the agency in bringing the forecasting of extreme water events like flooding and droughts up to speed with that of hurricanes and tornadoes.
“This will be a central place in the country where you have an eye on water issues day-in and day-out. It’s sort of like how people understand the National Hurricane Center and that sort of thing where their job is to look at hurricanes across the country, across the major parts of the world and really focus on that,” Carter said.
“We don’t have anything like that for water. This will be the first time we’ve got different agencies working on water under the same roof.”
Carter said during large-scale floods or droughts, it can be hard for the agencies who study such extreme water events to share data and other information. He said the National Water Center will play a big role in that and allow each agency to work on “the big picture.”
“We’ve got many offices in our respective agencies across the country, but we don’t have one place where the primary goal is trying to coordinate all of that information, make sure the respective agencies have the tools and information they need and really be a facilitator for breakthroughs in new technology, new science and new data,” he said.
“Now we can work on big problems across agency lines that no one agency can tackle on its own. This is a game changer for hydrology and water resources and it will have lasting benefits for decades to come.”
Kathryn Sullivan, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction, said the water center will have the advantage of plugging into “a fabulous nexus” on the UA campus.
Sullivan said the center will be the “first of its kind” and detailed the inner-workings of the facility.
Sullivan said there will be an operations center and a situation room where agencies can collaborate and establish “common operating pictures.”
She said the center will help agencies determine “what’s happening, where is the water, where is it too much, where is it too little, where is it flowing, where is it going and how are we trying to manage it?”
The center will also house a geointellgence laboratory where, in collaboration with university partners, state of the art tools and geographic information system capabilities will be developed, Sullivan said.
There will also be a collaborative science and software engineering studio where universities and federal agencies will partner with UA to develop new software tools to track flood inundation, flood trajectories and flow volumes in real time.
To put test these breakthroughs and new technologies, the center will house what is called a systems proving ground, Sullivan said.
“Our country, as I’ve said, is vulnerable to weather and water extremes. It is no overstatement to say that they challenge our national security and our well-being,” Sullivan said. “The National Water Center that we’re inaugurating here today, will help us deliver critical water intelligence. It will be the nerve center for knowledge and understanding water and the challenges we face in this country.”
William Werkheiser, Associate Director for Water at the United States Geological Survey, said the National Water Center was born out of a partnership between NOAA, the USGS and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers known as the Integrated Water Resources Sciences and Services.
Werkhesier said the center was the next step in expanding a decades-old partnership with NOAA in the study of floods and droughts.
“Many say that we’re reaching the end of what has been termed the ‘Golden Age of Water’ in the United States. As a nation we’ve come to expect water to be plentiful, to be clean and to be cheap,” he said. “We’re redefining those terms. It’s the major issue for the future and we need as stakeholders in the water community to pull together to address those challenges.”
Source: Tuscaloosa News – Wayne Grayson
Emoticons an Evolution of Language, Expression
February 21, 2012 – We have seen some truly remarkable evolutions of communication since the new millennium. Increase in the prevalence of cell phones eliminated the need to consistently know where our contact was or what they were doing. We no longer wait for someone to be at his or her house to call, because they are always reachable.
With the ability to contact anyone at anytime throughout the day, our reasons for calling became more definitive, and conversations briefer. Text messaging then gave us the ability to skip the salutations, polite introductory conversation and cut to the reason we contacted them. One text can ask the same questions that three minutes of conversation can ask.
Now, emoticons fill the place of text. “I’m happy” has turned into a symbol, just as “I’m mad, sad, confused” have the same options. Smart phones have given us even more creativity in emoticon expression. Emoticons have evolved from sideways colons and parenthesis to elaborate faces. Faces with different colors, tears streaming from their faces and even animals and symbols have become symbols in my texting conversations.
Many of my friends receive empty little boxes in their place, but the prevalence of iPhones has made most of my emoticons appreciated. I even have the option of sending symbols of objects, animals, food and drink to explain my reason for contact. If I want to grab lunch after class, I can send a symbol of a knife and fork next to a plate of spaghetti.
My most creative and all-time-favorite use of emoticons was a swirl symbol, followed by a tidal wave, another swirl and an exclamation point. One sentence down, and I was on a roll. I continued with: thumbs down, tiger cub face and then thumbs up, elephant.
Roll tide roll! Boo tigers, go elephants … of course. Excessive, sure, but let’s call that “gameday spirit.”
These emoticons require less work in return for greater understanding. They’re even more fun to communicate with. They have the ability to change the meaning of a text, solving a few issues with sarcasm. And for fun, I’ve learned with experience that an emoticon of a purple octopus isn’t a bad text to receive.
But in return, what is this briefing of conversation doing to our relationships? Undoubtedly, decrease in conversation sacrifices certain elements of our relationship. Emails and text messages have replaced conversations of catching up.
Hearing someone’s actual voice will always be more personal than text. Is convenience worth the forfeit of face-to face contact?
Emoticons have been credited for “the downfall of our society,” and the slimming of words shared is negatively perceived. This generation of text-massagers and emoticon-abusers must be an awfully disconnected and lazy bunch.
But I like receiving cartoon dancers and hand-symbols and animal faces throughout the day, because it makes me smile when I receive a smile. I’m not alone. Emoticons have been proven to trigger more emotion than text alone.
Convenience always comes at a price, and emoticons save time and energy. Emoticons have an ability to bring more meaning into a conversation, matching real facial expressions with miniature replacements. They are definitely unprofessional and are easily annoying. So use appropriately, sparingly and creatively.
And while our generation may be reverting back to hieroglyphics, we may also be learning how to effectively express our emotions better. Linguistics, just like technology, evolves, usually for the better. Briefer, yet more emotional messages are another transformation we have witnessed.
Source: Crimson White - SoRelle Wyckoff