OIT will be implementing a Banner upgrade Saturday, May 15 through Sunday, May 16. Banner will be available through most of the upgrade, it will only be unavailable Saturday, May 15 from 5:00am – 5:15am. For questions or concerns, contact the IT Service Desk at 205-348-5555 or itsd@ua.edu.
You may have seen the terms “data scraping” or “web scraping” in news stories lately, and asked yourself, “What is data scraping?” Look no further, the pros in OIT have got the answer.
Websites can include a lot of important data – much of which is information that users provide. Think for a moment, what information have you made publicly available on the web? Perhaps within your Facebook or LinkedIn profile details you’ve shared your name, degrees, relationships, location and work history. How many of your account security questions can be answered by this information? For example: what was your first job, or what is your maternal grandfather’s name?
Malicious actors use web scraping tools to extract data from websites. Data scraping creates feeds of information for easy parsing and analysis. Content can be scraped from multiple websites (a phone number here/an email address there) to combine the information and establish an entire user profile.
Note – data scraping is not always used for malicious activities. Marketing companies, content creators and designers often use data scraping tools to research their customer base, find leads or personalize advertisements. Although not malicious, consider asking yourself – do I want companies to know this much information about me?
Here is a key tip to limiting what personal information about you can be scraped off of the web: limit what you put out there! If less of your personal information exists online, less information can be scraped and used – by marketing companies or by malicious actors.
Recently, scraped data from 500 million LinkedIn users was posted online. To be clear – LinkedIn did not experience a data breach, rather actors scraped publicly available content from the site, compiled it together then posted it online. The data included account usernames, full names, email addresses, phone numbers, workplace information, genders and links to other social media accounts.
Review your online profiles, and consider what you want malicious actors and marketers to know about you. Remember – information posted online can be made available to audiences beyond your “friends,” so be cautious what you share.
MathWorks is offering several free upcoming webinars for research with MATLAB and Simulink. Topics include “MATLAB and Simulink with Python,” “The Use of MATLAB in Open Science,” “Scaling Up MATLAB Applications to Clusters and Clouds,” and others! More information, and webinar registration, is available on the MathWorks website.
Wednesday, May 5, the Eduroam WIFI network will require users to connect with their myBama email address.
Currently, users can connect to Eduroam with a myBama username and password. On May 5, users must connect with their username@ua.edu or username@crimson.ua.edu email address and myBama password. This change is required to be in compliance with Eduroam guidelines.
If users have previously connected with a username and password, they can forget their existing connection and rejoin with the proper credentials. On May 5, if users have not joined with proper credentials, they will lose their connection to Eduroam and must reconnect with the proper credentials.
Instructions on how to forget a network and how to connect to Eduroam is available on the OIT website.
Currently, students have unadvertised alias @ua.edu accounts that direct to @crimson.ua.edu. As a part of the student email migration May 7-9, OIT will be removing alias @ua.edu email addresses for students. Students that use their @ua.edu alias email addresses for any accounts, memberships, email lists, etc. should change from @ua.edu to @crimson.ua.edu. This change is designed to simplify the mail environment for students and IT administrators, and also to allow the coexistence of student and employee email domains within the UA Microsoft O365 tenant.
This year’s tax deadline has been extended, which means phishers and scammers have even more time than normal to trick individuals with tax scams. OIT has tips for UA students, faculty and staff to keep sensitive tax information safe this spring.
Do not be fooled by phone calls or emails that threaten to be the IRS demanding immediate payment. If you owe money to the IRS, you will receive a bill by mail, not a phone call or email.
Additionally, malicious actors may pose as the IRS and send messages with content such as “Where’s My Refund” or “Tax Refund Payment” attempting to lure in victims. These messages often include web links where they will ask the message recipient to submit sensitive information including a Social Security number, date of birth and prior year annual gross income. Be mindful of the red flags of phishing to easily spot phishing emails.
You wouldn’t leave a paper copy of your W2 sitting on a public bench. The same rules apply to online storage! Tax documents should be stored on a secure hard drive or personal, encrypted cloud storage account.
Do not email sensitive documents as an attachment. To share files, OIT recommends storing them in a secure cloud storage account, and sharing access to that account with only individuals you trust. OIT also recommends that faculty and staff use a personal email account for tax purposes. The email account should be secured with a strong password and two-factor authentication. Gmail offers Google Two-Step as an easy way to better secure email accounts.
If you choose to use an accounting service or company to file your taxes for you, ensure they have a record of good cybersecurity practices. By employing a tax accountant, you are trusting them with your most sensitive data. It isn’t out of reason to ask what measures they take to ensure your data is safe.
Tax-related identity theft is the most common type of identity theft. To learn more tips about how to protect your tax information, visit the IRS website, Identity Theft Central.
The latest version of NVivo is now available for UA students, faculty and staff. Previously, NVivo released versions with numbers, the latest version (sans numbers) is now available. NVivo 10 and NVivo 11 are also still available. License keys for each version are available on the OIT software catalog.
Microsoft O365 provides online archive space for faculty and staff mailboxes. Sunday, April 11, OIT will apply the Online Archive feature to all UA faculty and staff O365 mailboxes.
With the Online Archive feature, UA faculty and staff can move files they wish to archive to the Online Archive mailbox from within their Outlook application or Outlook on the web. Below is a screenshot of how the Online Archive folder will appear for UA faculty and staff O365 mailboxes. Learn archiving, and other Outlook best practices, on the OIT website.
Microsoft Teams is OIT’s favorite communication and collaboration app. Microsoft Teams is a digital hub that brings conversations, content, assignments, and apps together in one place. Microsoft Training professionals will be offering three upcoming virtual workshops for UA students, faculty and staff.
Microsoft Teams 101
March 26
Microsoft Teams Organization and Settings
April 1
Adding Files in Microsoft Teams
April 8
Learn more about each of these workshops on the UA Events Calendar.
Some UA students may have may not have received email from OIT-supported faculty and staff O365 email accounts sent from 11 p.m. Wednesday, March 10 through 6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 11.
If UA faculty and staff sent messages to students during this time window, OIT recommends that those messages be resent to ensure message delivery. Faculty and staff can visit their “Sent” folder and resend messages to students.
No issues have been reported regarding mail sent from external sources to student Crimson Google accounts or from student Crimson Google accounts to student Crimson Google accounts.
We understand email is a critical service, and we apologize for this error and inconvenience. The email routing issue that caused this service interruption has been resolved. We are working with Strategic Communications to send this notice to UA faculty and staff.
Note – this disruption in service is in no way related to a Microsoft cybersecurity vulnerability, this was caused by a mail routing issue.
