The Judson IST team would like to sincerely thank the faculty, staff and students for their understanding and patience as we worked to get the computer systems back up and running last week after the power outage. As of today, all but one of our systems are back online and functioning as expected. Preparations are in place to ensure that our campus does not experience a similar setback in the future by having several data centers with more reliability, protection and backup options.
To that end, over this weekend and over Spring Break several of our systems to be down for an hour or two at a time to ensure we have redundant systems in place. Scheduled maintenance will also be performed on several systems on Saturday, March 6, and Sunday, March 7, beginning at 10 p.m. on both evenings. The Jenzabar Support server will be impacted briefly from 10-11 p.m. on Saturday. On Sunday evening, the Campus Security/ID Card system and the HELIX system will be impacted briefly between 10-11p.m. This will be done on a system-by-system basis and we will communicate these outages to the campus community in advance.
Security Technology Tips
Be very wary of anyone wanting to remote into your computer. One scammer technique is a solicitor advising you that your device has a virus or been doing something suspicious. They pretend to be from a reputable company and offer to help clean up the problem. All they need is remote access to your device, and money (credit card number) to assist you. DON’T FALL FOR IT!
There is always a worry that your device will become infected or compromised in some way. Having someone call you, with a sense of urgency, offering to fix an issue may seem like a wonderful idea. But what they are after are a few things:
• credit card information or banking information, to pay for the “service” they are providing
• access to your device in order to steal your personal information
• access to your device to download malicious software, to make it do whatever they want
The Federal Trade Commission webpage (https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/media/video-0103-hijacked-computer-what-do) provides tips on what to look for and what steps to take if you think your device may be compromised. Don’t take the word of someone on the phone that you have never met that there is something wrong with your machine. Just like with any other social engineering attempt, verify who that person is by another means, i.e., calling the company back using a known phone number (NOT the number given to you over the phone).
