UPDATE: The authentication issues from this morning should be resolved now. If anyone experiences any issues with logging into campus systems please contact the Technology Services Help Desk (828-2227, help@vcu.edu) for assistance.

This morning after scheduled maintenance to the central LDAP authentication systems some applications are not able to authenticate users. The VCU Computer Center Network Operations Center is working with Network Services to resolve these issues. Please contact the VCU Help Desk (828-2227, help@vcu.edu) questions.

NOTE: Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, social security number or confidential personal information. For more details visit http://infosecurity.vcu.edu/phishing.html.

Follow Technology Services at:
http://www.ts.vcu.edu
http://www.twitter.com/vcutechservices
http://www.yammer.com

Posted by Sam Kennedy at 10:19 AM | Permalink

A vulnerability has been reported in Microsoft Excel affecting all supported versions of Excel on Windows and Mac OS X systems. The vulnerability is rated extremely critical by Secunia. To put the criticality in perspective, of the more than 600 vulnerabilities Secunia has reported in 2009, this is the second rated extremely critical.

Opening a malicious Excel file can result in the attacker to run code remotely on your computer under the same privileges as the local users. There are already reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited by attackers.

This is a 0-day vulnerability, which means there is currently no patch or upgrade to mitigate it. Microsoft suggests that you don't open or save Excel files that you receive from untrusted sources or that that you receive unexpectedly from trusted sources. In the latter case, VCU Information Security advises that you contact the source to ask if they sent you the file since files can be sent by infected machines or via spoofed email accounts such that it looks like the communication was initiated by a trusted source.

Microsoft also offers suggested technical solutions which provide limited protection against the vulnerability. Users are advised not to implement any of these suggestions unless they understand the ramifications since improper implementation could result in harm to your system.

As always, whether you're using a university computer or your home computer, run antivirus software (freely available for home use to VCU faculty, staff and students), keep your operating system and applications current and be careful what files you open.

For additional information security news, tips and more, follow our Twitter page via the Web or your handheld device.

Posted by Steve Werby at 9:24 PM | Permalink

A vulnerability has been reported in Adobe Flash Player, affecting version 10.0.12.36 and earlier (version 10.0.15.3 and earlier for Linux systems). The vulnerability is rated highly critical by Secunia and affects Flash Player on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux systems.

Viewing a malicious Flash movie could result in the attacker gaining remote access to your computer. Flash is widely used and Flash movies are often embedded within websites so your computer could be compromised simply by visiting a web page which displays a malicious Flash movie.

Adobe has released an update to Flash Player which mitigates the reported vulnerabilities. Install version 10.0.22.87 (the current version at the time of this posting) by downloading it from the Player Download Center or by using the auto-update mechanism within the product when prompted.

To find out your version of Flash Player, simply visit the About Flash Playerpage and look for the version number displayed in the "Version Information" box.

As always, whether you're using a university computer or your home computer, run antivirus software (freely available for home use to VCU faculty, staff and students), keep your operating system and applications current and be careful what files you open.

For additional information security news, tips and more, follow our Twitter page via the Web or your handheld device.

Posted by Steve Werby at 9:04 PM | Permalink

The university's Sametime Instant Messaging server - Spruce - will undergo a hardware and software upgrade on February 28, 2009 from 8:00 am until 12:00 pm. During this time, instant messaging services will not be available. After the upgrade, if you are prompted for a password -- please use your eID password. Note this is a change from the previous version of Sametime. If you have any questions regarding the upgrade, please contact Doctor Notes at dnotes@vcu.edu

Posted by Marie Scott at 3:12 PM | Permalink

Update 3: Banner services is now back online. Thank you.

UPDATE 2: Technology Services staff reports that voicemail service has been restored. Banner systems are still unavailable.

UPDATE: Users may find that they cannot access Banner Self Service, Banner INB Forms, or voicemail this morning. Network Services is working to resolve the issue this morning.

An upgrade to network equipment at the VCU Computer Center will interrupt access to various VCU hosted web-based services as well as interrupt network traffic. This upgrade will begin at 6 a.m. Thursday, February 26, and is expected to be completed by 6:30 a.m. Please contact the VCU Help Desk (828-2227, help@vcu.edu) to report any problems accessing the internet or VCU hosted web-based services after this upgrade is completed.

NOTE: Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, social security number or confidential personal information. For more details visit http://infosecurity.vcu.edu/phishing.html.

Follow Technology Services at:
http://www.ts.vcu.edu
http://www.twitter.com/vcutechservices
http://www.yammer.com

Posted by Sam Kennedy at 7:34 AM | Permalink

An upgrade to the Banner system on Friday, February 27th, beginning at 6 p.m. will cause Banner Self Service for Faculty, Students, and Staff and Banner INB Forms to be unavailable until approximately 10 p.m. Please contact the VCU Help Desk (828-2227, help@vcu.edu) with any questions.

NOTE: Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, social security number or confidential personal information. For more details visit http://infosecurity.vcu.edu/phishing.html.

Follow Technology Services at:
http://www.ts.vcu.edu
http://www.twitter.com/vcutechservices
http://www.yammer.com

Posted by Sam Kennedy at 10:21 PM | Permalink

Email users should now be able to connect to their email accounts via VCU Mail Anywhere and IMAP.

Users on VRAM1c, VRAM3c, and VRAM4c will need to connect to their alternate IMAP servers, vramimap1.vcu.edu, vramimap3.vcu.edu, or vramimap4.vcu.edu while these servers are being restarted, or automatically via VCU Mail Anywhere.

Posted by Connie Lowery at 1:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

VCU Mail Anywhere and IMAP service access continues to be intermittent. Users should try again in 15 minutes should authentication fail. Networking and eDirectory teams are reviewing this issue.

Posted by Joe Lichtenstein at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

VCU is moving to a cloud computing student email solution. Cloud computing email means outsourcing an application such as email and making it available over the internet. New students will automatically be given access to the new email offering while current students may remain with the Lotus Notes platform or they can sign-up for the new email service. The university is looking at two vendors, Google and Microsoft, and we need your input as we move forward with the selection process. Please review and comment on this transition by visiting http://go.vcu.edu/newstudentemail. We look forward to hearing from you.

NOTE: Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, social security number or confidential personal information. For more details visit http://infosecurity.vcu.edu/phishing.html.

Follow Technology Services at:
http://www.ts.vcu.edu
http://www.twitter.com/vcutechservices
http://www.yammer.com

Posted by Sam Kennedy at 10:24 AM | Permalink

VCU is moving to a cloud computing student email solution. Cloud computing email means outsourcing an application such as email and making it available over the internet. This allows students to sign-up for and use without any concern about where, how, or by whom the compute cycles and storage are provided. The university is looking at two vendors: Google and Microsoft.

Please review and comment on this transition.

Posted by Jim Yucha at 9:58 AM | Permalink

Blackboard Maintenance - Friday, February 27, 2009 - 8:00pm to midnight. Please note that the start time is 8:00pm instead of our usual 4:00pm. This downtime will be used to switch back to the production database server. The Blackboard system has been temporarily running on a “failover” database due to problems encountered during system maintenance on February 13th.

Blackboard Maintenance is the second and fourth Friday of the month.

If unforeseen circumstances cause the system to be down past midnight updates will be posted to the Blackboard system announcement blog at:

http://blog.vcu.edu/blackboard/

Regards,
The Blackboard Team

For further assistance contact:
Technology Services Help Desk Contact Information
Phone: 828-2227
Email: blackboard@vcu.edu
Help ticket: http://www.ts.vcu.edu/helpdesk/
Blackboard FAQ: http://faq.vcu.edu/ts/

Bb Training/Instructional Assistance
http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/training/it/search.asp (enter Keyword: Blackboard)
Center for Teaching Excellence - http://www.vcu.edu/cte/

Posted by Jana Avery at 2:25 PM | Permalink

The Technology Services Help Desk is receiving reports from the VCU community that some people are having trouble accessing the wireless network. The problem appears to be with pulling up the authentication page. Not everyone is affected at this time. Please contact the Help Desk (828-2227, help@vcu.edu) with any questions. Network Services staff have been notified and are investigating this issue.

Posted by Thomas Mattauch at 11:23 AM | Permalink

ASPEN3 Email Server is currently restarting. Users can connect to their alternate server, OAK3, via the Notes client or IMAP, or by changing their url string to OAK3.vcu.edu via VCU Mail Anywhere.

Posted by Joe Lichtenstein at 8:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Saturday, February 28, 2009, we will be performing maintenance on the ImageNow system. ImageNow will not be available for the day.

Posted by Eric Doersch at 8:03 AM | Permalink

A vulnerability has been reported in Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat, affecting versions 7, 8 and 9 (current version). The vulnerability is rated extremely critical by Secunia. To put the criticality in perspective, of the more than 600 vulnerabilities Secunia has reported in 2009, this is the first rated extremely critical.

Opening a malicious PDF file can result in the attacker gaining full control of your computer.

It has been reported that this vulnerability is being actively exploited. There is no patch to mitigate the vulnerability. Adobe expects to release updates to version 9 of each product by March 11th and at a later date for earlier versions of Reader and Acrobat. Since there won't be a patch for several weeks, we expect there to be a large volume of attacks utilizing this exploit.

It's currently unknown whether Sophos Anti-Virus detects any malware that try to exploit this vulnerability.

Until Adobe releases a patch, a compromise of your system can be mitigated in Adobe Reader by disabling JavaScript. To do so, open Adobe Reader, click "Edit", click "Preferences", click "JavaScript", uncheck the box to the left of "Enable Acrobat JavaScript", then click the "OK" button. It's possible that malicious code could still cause Adobe Reader to crash, but that's better than your computer being compromised.

As always, whether you're using a university computer or your home computer, run antivirus software (freely available for home use to VCU faculty, staff and students), keep your operating system and applications current and be careful what files you open.

For additional information security news, tips and more, follow our Twitter page via the Web or your handheld device.

Posted by Steve Werby at 1:36 PM | Permalink

Banner Self-Service and INB Forms will not be available Saturday, February 21, beginning at 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. due to a system upgrade. Access is expected to be restored Saturday evening.

Please contact the VCU Help Desk (828-2227, help@vcu.edu) with any questions or to report any issues with access to Banner after service is restored Saturday evening.

NOTE: Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, social security number or confidential personal information. For more details visit http://infosecurity.vcu.edu/phishing.html.

Follow Technology Services at:
http://www.ts.vcu.edu
http://www.twitter.com/vcutechservices
http://www.yammer.com

Posted by Sam Kennedy at 9:32 AM | Permalink

The Technology Services Help Desk is receiving reports from the VCU community that some people are having trouble accessing the wireless network. The problem appears to be with pulling up the authentication page. Not everyone is affected at this time. Please contact the Help Desk (828-2227, help@vcu.edu) with any questions. Network Services staff have been notified and are investigating this issue.

NOTE: Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, social security number or confidential personal information. For more details visit http://infosecurity.vcu.edu/phishing.html.

Follow Technology Services at:
http://www.ts.vcu.edu
http://www.twitter.com/vcutechservices
http://www.yammer.com

Posted by Sam Kennedy at 12:29 PM | Permalink

UPDATE - This maintenance is complete and all pending mail has been delivered to Blackberries.

The Enterprise Blackberry Server, Walnut, will be unavailable from 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 a.m. February 21, 2009, for hardware maintenance. A system battery will be replaced in the Blackberry Server at this time. Mail being sent to the Blackberry server will be queued for delivery. You may access your e-mail via VCU Mail Anywhere, the Lotus Notes client software or IMAP while the Blackberry server is undergoing maintenance.

Posted by Connie Lowery at 4:48 PM | Permalink

In order to address some of the issues with the wireless system our vendor has recommended an upgrade to the wireless access point control modules. This change has been scheduled for this Thursday, February 19th, beginning at 5 a.m. until 7 a.m. All users logged onto to wireless network will be affected by this change. In addition, users will not be able to log in during this maintenance window. This affects the entire wireless network on both the Monroe Park and MCV campuses.

Please contact the VCU Help Desk (828-2227, help@vcu.edu) with any questions.

NOTE: Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, social security number or confidential personal information. For more details visit http://infosecurity.vcu.edu/phishing.html.

Follow Technology Services at:
http://www.ts.vcu.edu
http://www.twitter.com/vcutechservices
http://www.yammer.com

Posted by Sam Kennedy at 8:00 AM | Permalink

Scheduled maintenance will be performed on the E-mail system Saturday, February 21, between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. During this maintenance window, access to e-mail may be unavailable on your primary server. Access to your e-mail via your alternate server should be available automatically when accessing through VCU Mail Anywhere, or via your alternate server using an IMAP connection or the Notes client.

Posted by James Pociluyko at 7:00 AM | Permalink

Oak2 Email Server is currently restarting. Users can connect to their alternate server, Aspen2, via the Notes client or IMAP, or by changing their url string to aspen2.vcu.edu via VCU Mail Anywhere.

Posted by Connie Lowery at 2:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Email Services is restarting VRAM1 and VRAM1C to resolve connectivity via VCU Mail Anywhere.

Posted by Connie Lowery at 1:18 PM | Permalink

Email Services is currently restarting Aspen2 to resolve connectivity issues. Users may connect to their alternate server via IMAP or the Notes client, Oak2, or by changing their url string to oak2.vcu.edu in VCU Mail Anywhere.

Posted by Connie Lowery at 1:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Blackboard Status (Sat. Feb. 14, 2009 12:30pm) – System Back On-Line

Update: The Blackboard system is back up and running as of Saturday, Feb. 14 at 12:35pm. Please note that we had to go to the “failover” database and it may be slower then the “production” database. The plan will be to fix the “production” database and go back to it. Depending on a number of factors we may not be able to wait for the next scheduled downtime to go back to the “production” database. We will do our best to give notice if we are going to take the system down before the next scheduled maintenance (Feb. 27 – 4pm to midnight).

What happened: The Blackboard (Bb) system was down due to a problem with a patch to the database operating system that occurred during the regularly scheduled maintenance on Friday night (Feb 13, 2009). We do our best to test patches before they are applied by installing them on two different Bb environments (development and test). The application of the patch was successful in the Bb development and test environments but acted differently when applied to production.

Report any problems to blackboard@vcu.edu or call the Help Desk at 804-828-2227.

We appreciate your understanding,
The Blackboard Team

Posted by Sheila Chandler at 12:51 PM | Permalink

Due to unforeseen difficulties Blackboard will not be back online by midnight. Check http://blog.vcu.edu/blackboard for updates.

Sorry for any inconvenience,
The Blackboard Team

Posted by Sheila Chandler at 11:55 PM | Permalink

Email services is currently restarting VRAM11. Students may connect to their alternate server via IMAP, vramimap11c.vcu.edu, or automatically via VCU Mail Anywhere.

Posted by Connie Lowery at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Maintenance will be performed on the E-mail system Saturday, February 14 between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. During this time, fixes will be applied to the servers to improve IMAP stability and server reliability.

During this maintenance window, access to e-mail may be unavailable on your primary server. Access to your e-mail via your alternate server should be available automatically when accessing through VCU Mail Anywhere, or via your alternate server using an IMAP connection or the Notes client.

Posted by Marie Scott at 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

COMPLETE - Server maintenance will occur on all LANDesk servers between 5 am and 8am on Friday, February 13. All services should be restored by 8am.

Posted by Mary Young at 8:01 AM | Permalink

Email Services is currently restarting VRAM9 and VRAM11. Users may connect via their alternate server, vramimap9c.vcu.edu or vramimap11c.vcu.edu using IMAP, or automatically via VCU Mail Anywhere,

Posted by Connie Lowery at 6:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Email Services is currently restarting Oak3. Users may connect to their alternate server, Aspen3, via IMAP or the Notes client, or by changing their url string to aspen3.vcu.edu in VCU Mail Anywhere.

Posted by Connie Lowery at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Student email server VRAM9 is unavailable for a short time, users can connect to their alternate server, VRAMIMAP9c.vcu.edu or automatically via VCU Mail Anywhere.

Posted by Joe Lichtenstein at 7:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Email Services is working to stabilize VRAM9c at this time. Users may connect to their alternate server, vramimap9.vcu.edu, via IMAP, or via VCU Mail Anywhere.

Posted by Connie Lowery at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Sunday, February 15, 2009, from 10:00 a.m. to approximately 10:30 a.m., the Computer Center will be performing maintenance on the ImageNow server. ImageNow will not be available during this scheduled maintenance window.

Posted by Eric Doersch at 11:56 AM | Permalink

Blackboard Maintenance - Friday, February 13, 2009 – 4pm to midnight. Blackboard Maintenance is the second and fourth Friday of the month.

If unforeseen circumstances cause the system to be down past midnight updates will be posted to the Blackboard system announcement blog at:

http://blog.vcu.edu/blackboard/

Regards,
The Blackboard Team

For further assistance contact:
Technology Services Help Desk Contact Information
Phone: 828-2227
Email: blackboard@vcu.edu
Help ticket: http://www.ts.vcu.edu/helpdesk/
Blackboard FAQ: http://faq.vcu.edu/ts/

Bb Training/Instructional Assistance
http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/training/it/search.asp (enter Keyword: Blackboard)
Center for Teaching Excellence - http://www.vcu.edu/cte/

Posted by Jana Avery at 2:29 PM | Permalink

Email Services has stabilized the Blackberry server, users should expect normal performance at this time.

Posted by Connie Lowery at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Network Services has announced that they will be performing residence hall network upgrades on Wednesday, February 11, 2009 beginning at 5 a.m. until 7 a.m. During this time, VPN access, wireless, and network connectivity from all of the residence halls will be unavailable. Please contact the VCU Help Desk (828-2227, help@vcu.edu) with any questions.

NOTE: Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, social security number or confidential personal information. For more details visit http://infosecurity.vcu.edu/phishing.html.

Follow Technology Services at:
http://www.ts.vcu.edu
http://www.twitter.com/vcutechservices
http://www.yammer.com

Posted by Sam Kennedy at 10:00 AM | Permalink

The Domino Server - Oak - is being restarted at 3:23 PM on February 6, 2009. Users may connect to their secondary server - Aspen - via the Notes client, secondary IMAP connection or via VCU Mail Anywhere, by substituting the word "aspen" in the URL string.

Posted by Marie Scott at 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Network Services is reporting that users in the following locations are experiencing problems with connecting to the wireless network:

-Brand Center
-McGuire Hall
-Sanger Hall
-School of Engineering
-Snead Hall
-Trani Life Sciences

Network Services is investigating the problem at this time. Please contact the VCU Help Desk (828-2227, help@vcu.edu) with any questions.

NOTE: Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, social security number or confidential personal information. For more details visit http://infosecurity.vcu.edu/phishing.html.

Follow Technology Services at:
http://www.ts.vcu.edu
http://www.twitter.com/vcutechservices
http://www.yammer.com

Posted by Sam Kennedy at 11:55 AM | Permalink

The backup power supple that supports the network equipment on the 4th floor of Gladding Residence Center (GRC) will be replaced beginning at 6:30 a.m. on Friday, February 6, 2009. This will cause users on the 4th floor to loose wired and wireless network connection for approximately 30 minutes. Please contact the VCU Help Desk (828-2227, help@vcu.edu) with any questions concerning this maintenance.

NOTE: Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, social security number or confidential personal information. For more details visit http://infosecurity.vcu.edu/phishing.html.

Follow Technology Services at:
http://www.ts.vcu.edu
http://www.twitter.com/vcutechservices
http://www.yammer.com

Posted by Sam Kennedy at 11:42 AM | Permalink

Scheduled maintenance will be performed on the Blackberry Server Saturday, February 7, between 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. Access to e-mail may be obtained through VCU Mail Anywhere, or an IMAP connection or the Notes client. Once the maintenance is completed, queued mail will be delivered to the Blackberry devices.

Posted by Marie Scott at 9:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There are highly critical vulnerabilities in version 3 of the Firefox browser. Details are available at Secunia. Mitigation is simply to upgrade to v3.0.6. I recommend doing so immediately by going to the menu bar and clicking "Help", followed by "Apply Downloaded Update Now..." and following the instructions.

For those unfamiliar with VCU Information Security's use of Twitter to share information about security risks, vulnerabilities and issues, you can see our posts at http://twitter.com/vcuinfosec/ or view them on the VCU Information Security home page.

Posted by Steve Werby at 8:50 AM | Permalink

Software updates to the Banner system will be performed this Friday, February 6, 2009, beginning at 6 p.m. The maintenance is expected to be completed by 9 p.m. During this time users will not have access to the Banner Forms (INB) or Banner Self-Service. Please contact the VCU Help Desk (828-2227, help@vcu.edu) with any questions concerning this maintenance.

NOTE: Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, social security number or confidential personal information. For more details visit http://infosecurity.vcu.edu/phishing.html.

Follow Technology Services at:
http://www.ts.vcu.edu
http://www.twitter.com/vcutechservices
http://www.yammer.com

Posted by Sam Kennedy at 8:00 AM | Permalink

Some in the VCU campus community are experiencing problems with the Gartner.com Single Sign-On link available in the myVCU portal. Gartner provides research and advice to organizations on the technology sector and is available to all VCU students, faculty, and staff. The first time someone uses the link they are presented with the Gartner site. If they try to use the my VCU Single Sign-On link again from the same browser a problem prevents the site from opening up after the first visit. This is a cookie issue with the workaround being to close all browser windows to clear cookies before trying to log into Gartner.com again. Web Services has been in contact with Gartner to work on a solution. Please contact the VCU Help Desk (828-2227, help@vcu.edu) if you have any questions concerning this issue.

NOTE: Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, social security number or confidential personal information. For more details visit http://infosecurity.vcu.edu/phishing.html.

Follow Technology Services at:
http://www.ts.vcu.edu
http://www.twitter.com/vcutechservices
http://www.yammer.com

Posted by Sam Kennedy at 3:36 PM | Permalink

Scheduled maintenance will be performed on the E-mail system Saturday, February 7, between 8:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. During this maintenance window, access to e-mail may be unavailable on your primary server. Access to your e-mail via your alternate server should be available automatically when accessing through VCU Mail Anywhere, or via your alternate server using an IMAP connection or the Notes client.

Posted by James Pociluyko at 7:00 AM | Permalink