Microsoft Security Patches – June

June 14, 2016 John Mazzarella

On June 14 th , 2016, Microsoft released security patches for:

Windows 10, 8.1, 7, Vista.
Windows servers 2012, 2008, 2003
Microsoft Office 2016; 2013; 2010, 2007

We strongly encourage you to apply these patches to your PC as soon as possible. For information about these updates please visit: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/mt733206.aspx

Click on the Windows logo located on the lower left hand corner of your computer screen, a menu will appear, click on “Control Panel”.

Once in the Control Panel, type the words “windows update” in the Search Control Panel field located in the upper right hand corner. As you do, the following screen will immediately appear.

Now, in the upper left handle corner, click the words “check for update”. This screen will appear

Click the “Check for updates” button to begin the checking. The following screen will appear after the checking is completed. All Important Updates must be installed. Click the “Install updates” button to begin the installation. You will need to reboot your computer to finish the installation later.

Alternatively, if you are using Internet Explorer you can click on Tools > and select Windows Update to install the latest security patches.

For questions please call the Service Desk at 617-287-5220 or via email at ITServiceDesk@umb.edu.

News

Tech Summer Camps 2016

June 9, 2016 John Mazzarella

Make this the summer you get the tech skills you need to succeed!

Attend Tech Summer Camps 2016, a series of free Tech Training Workshops offered on campus by the IT department. Learn iPad apps, Photoshop, Video Editing, Excel, Powerpoint, Acrobat Pro and more!

Intro to 3D Printing

Get an overview of 3D Printing and 3D Design. Learn how to design 3D models using AudoDesk Fusion and basic operation of UMass Boston’s 3D Printers. You will get to design a simple object and print it out before leaving the class!

Wednesday June 22nd 1-2:30

Sign Up at:
http://UMB.LI/3dprint16

Adobe Summer Camp

Did you know that faculty and staff get a huge discount on Adobe software? Come to one session or all five to learn how to use these powerful multimedia creation tools!

Monday June 27th 1-3: PDF Creation and Editing with Adobe Acrobat
Tuesday June 28th 1-3: Photo manipulation with Adobe Photoshop
Wednesday June 29th 1-3: Digital Animation with Adobe Animate
Thursday June 30th 1-3: Creating Graphics with Adobe Illustrator
Friday July 1st 1-3: Video Touchups with Adobe After Effects

Learn More and Sign Up at:
http://UMB.LI/adobe16

iPad Research and Productivity Camp

Come to one day or all five. Learn about iPad apps to create impactful presentations, keep your digital life organized, and improve your research skills. Learn about the iPad’s accessibility tools and apps. iPads will be provided by the Library.

Monday June 20th 10-11: Library Supported Apps & more
Tuesday June 21st 10-11: Database Apps for Research: Gale, EBSCO, PubMed & Census
Wednesday June 22nd 10-11: Accessibility Tools and Apps
Thursday June 23rd 10-11: Apps to Enhance Productivity
Friday June 24th 10-11: Mobile Presentation Tools

Learn More and Sign Up at:
http://UMB.LI/ipad16

Excel Summer Camp

Learn all about Excel, from basic usage to advanced functions and techniques. Many people know excel by picking it up over the course of years, but taking a comprehensive series like this will truly make you an expert!

Tuesday July 26th P1 1-3: Intro To Excel
Wednesday July 27th 1-3: Charting in Excel
Thursday July 28th 1-3: Excel Database Features
Friday July 29th 1-3: Functions and Formulas in Excel

Learn More and Sign Up at:
http://UMB.LI/excel16

PowerPoint Summer Camp

Learn about PowerPoint in depth with this short series covering basic and advanced topics that will give your presentation a professional polish.

Tuesday June 21st 1-3: Introduction to PowerPoint
Wednesday June 22nd 1-3: Transitions and Animations
Thursday June 23rd 1-3: Media, Timings, and Effects

★ June 28th, 1-3:
PowerPoint Clinic. Bring a presentations for analysis and discussion about PowerPoint best practices.

Learn More and Sign Up at:
http://UMB.LI/powerpoint16

UMass Boston Website Summer Camp

Do you have a web editor account to edit your section of the UMass Boston website? If so, this series is for you! Recap all the features, tips, and tricks to make your web content and organization effective and intuitive for your visitors. Learn to track traffic on your page to gauge effectiveness, as well as how to add images to your web pages. You’ll leave from this week with the skills to easily make you’re section of the website amazing!

Monday July 18th 1-2:30: Web Editing Boot Camp Day 1
Tuesday July 19th 1-2: Web Editing Boot Camp Day 2
Wednesday July 20th 1-2: Web Editing Boot Camp Day 3
Thursday July 21st 1-2: Web Editing Boot Camp Day 4 – Siteimprove Reports
Friday July 22nd 1-2:30: Web Editing Boot Camp Day 5 – Web Graphics

★ July 21st, 2-3: Siteimprove Clinic. Come to discuss your specific reporting needs, and how you can get the best metrics for your site.

Learn More and Sign Up at:
http://UMB.LI/Web16

Blackboard Summer Camp

The eLearning and Instructional Support Team has some exciting events and trainings coming this summer. You can sign up to be notified about future training offerings about Blackboard and other eLearning concepts by filling out the form below.

Sign Up at:
http://UMB.LI/blackboard16

Images are CC+BY+SA. Source images: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

News

The 10th Annual Conference on Teaching, Learning, and Technology was a great success!

May 27, 2016 John Mazzarella

Another spring semester draws to a close, and with it comes the annual University Conference on Teaching, Learning, and Technology. Now in it’s 10th year, the conference continues to grant UMass Boston faculty opportunities for sharing strategies and exploring issues that focus on inclusive teaching, learning, and curriculum and technology change in college classrooms.

From discussions of disciplinary and inter-disciplinary content to explorations and applications of it, social interactions help students discover the power of learning as participating and “learning to be.” In a recent Educause Review article, Minds on Fire, John Seely Brown and Richard Adler write about “the importance of social interaction to learning”:

[I]nstead of starting from the Cartesian premise of “I think, therefore I am,” and from the assumption that knowledge is something that is transferred to the student via various pedagogical strategies, the social view of learning says, “We participate, therefore we are.”

Screen Shot 2016-05-27 at 3.28.52 PM — Faculty Award Winners with the Provost, from left to right. Jackie Lageson – Sociology [Community Engaged] Winston Langley – Provost Shoshanna Ehrlich – Women & Gender Studies – [Face-to-Face] Laura Hayden – Counseling and School Psychology – [Online] Andrew Perumal – Economics – [Face-to-Face]

Since 1994, the UMass Boston Center for Innovative Teaching has organized an annual conference on Teaching for Transformation. Beginning in 2011, CIT collaborated with IT/Educational Technology and Healey Library to host the conference collaboratively. The day-long conference included presentations and workshops on a variety of issues that are critical to teaching and learning in a diverse, public institution of higher education. The annual conferences provide opportunities for presenters across different educational institutions in the New England area to explore issues and share strategies that focus on inclusive teaching and curriculum change in college classrooms.

To read more about the day’s activities, visit the 2016 conference program.

News

TechToberFest – The IT Department Presents a Series of Technology Workshops and Events

May 23, 2016 John Mazzarella

TechToberFest– Free tech training activities all semester long!

★ EVENT: Machine Learning with MATLAB

Thursday, October 8, 2015. 1-3 | Integrated Sciences Complex, Room 1400

Machine learning is ubiquitous. Come to learn about several machine learning techniques available in MATLAB. Sign Up for Free »

★ EVENT: i>Clicker: Student Response System

Thursday, October 14, 2015. 11-12 & 1-2 | Integrated Sciences Complex, Room 2003

Learn how i>Clickers provide opportunities for interaction, collaboration, and peer instruction in your class. No registration required! See the Agenda »

• Mobile Apps for Education

Learn how to use some great iPad apps to help with your courses. Prezi, Google Slides, Educreations, and more. See the Classes »

• Graphic Design

Learn how to use professional design software like Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat Pro, plus photography and photo editing. See the Classes »

 • Microsoft Office

Learn the in’s and out’s of Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, and Word. Give your documents a professional polish. See the Classes »

• Library Research

Learn the tools to seek, gather, and manage your research information with Zotero, Mendeley and EasyBib. See the Classes »

• Research Computing

Learn about high performance computing resources and services, as well as classes on Linux and Bash shell scripting. See the Classes »

• Blackboard

Engage your students using Blackboard. Post course content, accept & grade assignments online, and use academic integrity tools. See the Classes »

• Statistics

Learn the various tools for statistical analysis, included SPSS, SAS, R, using Excel for statistics, and more. See the Classes »

• Cyber Security

There’s no delete button on the Internet. Is your digital identity secure? Learn how to keep yourself secure online. See the Classes »

There are plenty more topics offered by IT, as well as other departments across campus. See them all at The Training Portal

Want to teach a workshop about a subject you are passionate about? Send an email to ITC@umb.edu and lets talk about it!

Update Notifications

Microsoft Security Patches – May

May 11, 2016 John Mazzarella

On May 10 th , 2016, Microsoft released security patches for:

Windows 10, 8.1, 7, Vista
Windows servers 2012, 2008, 2003
Microsoft Office 2016; 2013; 2010, 2007

Click on the Windows logo located on the lower left hand corner of your computer screen, a menu will appear, click on “Control Panel”.

Once in the Control Panel, type the words “windows update” in the Search Control Panel field located in the upper right hand corner. As you do, the following screen will immediately appear.

Now, in the upper left handle corner, click the words “check for update”. This screen will appear

Alternatively, if you are using Internet Explorer you can click on Tools > and select Windows Update to install the latest security patches.

For questions please call the Service Desk at 617-287-5220 or via email at ITServiceDesk@umb.edu.

News

Wi-Fi will be down for scheduled upgrades May 24th 10:00 p.m. – 6:00 a.m.

May 7, 2016 John Mazzarella

A Wi-Fi service outage is planned Tuesday May 24th 10:00 p.m. until Wednesday May 25th 06:00 a.m.. Network Services will be upgrading code on network equipment which will cause a campus-wide wireless outage. This outage is necessary so that network engineers may introduce newer wireless access points to the campus.

The wired network service will NOT be affected during this outage window so there should not be any interruption in general internet use for the campus community, or in the use of the campus wired networks.

Please plan accordingly. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause and we do appreciate your patience.

Questions or concerns may be directed to ITSD Service Desk (617.287.5220, ITServiceDesk@umb.edu)

To get updates on this alert and
see the status of other systems, visit:
umb.edu/it/status

News, Phishing, Security

PHISHING WALL OF SHAME – “Campus Police Security News Umb.Edu”

April 28, 2016 John Mazzarella

Don’t rely on the kindness of scammers!

We all owe a debt of gratitude to today’s scammer for all the clues he gave, warning us we were about to be hustled! However, you can’t rely on obvious signs to protect yourself. Today’s entry was forwarded to IT staff by numerous people on campus:

The email has a link in it. IT Staff were able to investigate this link in a secure way, and saw it directed to a form requesting the user enter their email username and password. Trained IT Staff opened the web page to take the picture below, however you should avoid clicking a link in a suspicious email because it could contain phishing attempts, malicious code, or illegal content, and could cause harm to your computer. Here is the page that these links led to:

“Pippy” was removed
from the logo in 2009.

Let’s list all the ways that this scammer showed us that they are trying to hustle us. The email text is confusing, the sender’s name doesn’t show up in our staff directory, the sender is using a non-umb.edu email address (probably a previous phishing victim), and the logo on the website is about 7 years out of date.

But what’s the number one way we can tell that this page is trying to hustle us? Let’s get a close up of that URL… screenshot of the scammer's url, goonthehustle******.us Yes, the URL of this page actually has “Hustle” in the address!

All that being said, a point that this blog always tries to hammer home is “Never assume a scammer’s stupidity will adequately protect you from their malice.” (If I may adapt Hanlon’s razor…)

What this means is while many attacks are obvious fakes, it’s not hard for a scammer to make a perfect looking email and web page-you can’t depend on an incompetent scammer to keep yourself safe!

Today’s scammer did a poor job, but how could you be sure it’s a fake, even if the attack were a perfect forgery? Check the URL and the certificate!

To contrast, here is the url bar for the real UMass Boston webmail login. First you can see it says “umb.edu/”. But beyond that, we can tell the page has a security certificate from the green icon. If you click on this green icon, you get additional info about its validity.

Note, the certificate icon will look different depending on your browser and operating system. Do some research to find out what you should be seeing on yours.

If you are suspicious of a file, link, website, or email, you can contact the IT department to ask if it may be a scam. Forward a copy of a suspicious email to abuse@umb.edu.

Always remember…

Don’t take the bait! IT will NEVER ask you for your password. Phishing emails attempt to deceive you into giving up your private information by leading you to fraudulent websites. Learn more at:
http://www.umb.edu/it/getting_services/security/phishing/

Update Notifications

Microsoft Security Patches – April

April 12, 2016 John Mazzarella

On April 12th, 2016, Microsoft released security patches for:

Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista
Windows servers 2012, 2008, 2003
Microsoft Office 2016; 2013; 2010, 2007
Internet Explorer 11, 9

We strongly encourage you to apply these patches to your PC as soon as possible. For information about these updates please visit: https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/ms16-apr

Click on the Windows logo located on the lower left hand corner of your computer screen, a menu will appear, click on “Control Panel”.

Once in the Control Panel, type the words “windows update” in the Search Control Panel field located in the upper right hand corner. As you do, the following screen will immediately appear.

Now, in the upper left handle corner, click the words “check for update”. This screen will appear

Alternatively, if you are using Internet Explorer you can click on Tools > and select Windows Update to install the latest security patches.

For questions please call the Service Desk at 617-287-5220 or via email at ITServiceDesk@umb.edu.

News

Phishing season in full swing as tax deadline looms

March 15, 2016 John Mazzarella

Associated Press – Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Tax day is a little more than a month away, which means phishing season is in full swing.The IRS says it’s seen a “surge” this year in phishing emails, with thieves baiting special hooks for payroll and human-resources workers in hopes of snagging a company’s entire stash of employee Social Security numbers and other personal information.

Meanwhile, tax-season phishing attacks against individuals are also up. Last month, the IRS said it had seen a quadrupling of phishing- and malware-related incidents for this year’s tax season.

Experts warn that phishing emails often masquerade as legitimate communication from your bank, human resources department or email provider. But in reality, they’re part of a scheme designed to steal the confidential information stored in your computer, or to gain access to the network it’s attached to. And this time of year, that information can be used to file a false tax return.

While people are more aware of the danger of phishing more than ever before, the lures continue to evolve and increase in sophistication, making it tough for the average person to discern which emails are legitimate and which ones aren’t.

To read more visit — http://a.msn.com/r/2/AAgzcgt?a=1&m=EN-US

Update Notifications

Microsoft Security Patches – March

March 8, 2016 John Mazzarella

On March 8th, 2016, Microsoft released security patches for:

Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, RT, RT8.1
Windows servers 2012, 2008, 2003
Microsoft Office 2016; 2013; 2010, 2007

Click on the Windows logo located on the lower left hand corner of your computer screen, a menu will appear, click on “Control Panel”.

Once in the Control Panel, type the words “windows update” in the Search Control Panel field located in the upper right hand corner. As you do, the following screen will immediately appear.

Now, in the upper left handle corner, click the words “check for update”. This screen will appear

Alternatively, if you are using Internet Explorer you can click on Tools > and select Windows Update to install the latest security patches.

For questions please call the Service Desk at 617-287-5220 or via email at ITServiceDesk@umb.edu.

Make this the summer you get the tech skills you need to succeed!

To get updates on this alert and see the status of other systems, visit: umb.edu/it/status

To get updates on this alert and
see the status of other systems, visit:
umb.edu/it/status