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OIT Support Lines 8:00AM - 5:00PM Monday-Friday
Phone: (865) 974-9900
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News & Current Events
E-mail Safety and Security
Mon Sep 14 15:03:05 2009
In recent weeks, the university has been the target of several phishing scams. Phishing is the act of sending an e-mail pretending to be from a legitimate source with the intention of gaining personal information from the recipient. Many phishing scams urgently request you click on a link or respond to an e-mail and provide personal information, including username, passwords, social security numbers, birthdates, etc.
Many phishing scams are trying to coerce you into giving out your UT NetID and password so they can access your e-mail and send out spam that looks like it is coming from you they do this in hopes that someone who sees e-mail from you will click on their fraudulent link and give up a credit card number or other personal information.
When this happens, the entire university community gets "blacklisted" this means recipients (such as Gmail, AT&T and Yahoo!) block all e-mails originating from @utk.edu. If you receive a phishing scam, please delete the e-mail and do not respond or click on the link. If you are unsure if the e-mail is phishing, please contact the OIT HelpDesk at 974-9900 or at http://help.utk.edu.
Over the last two weeks, UT has been blacklisted by many of the major ISPs as a result of faculty, staff and students being fooled by these phishing e-mails. The university has been cleared from most of the blacklists, however, we remain blacklisted by Comcast and AT&T.
We have submitted our request to these ISPs and hope to be cleared by them very soon. OIT remains diligent in our efforts to investigate these cases and hopefully catch them before we are blacklisted.
The best protection from phishing is education and diligence! There is no technology solution to totally prevent it.
To be clear: No legitimate business or any office at this university will ever send you an e-mail with links to ask for personal information.
The only official communications you will receive from OIT about your accounts are routine prompts to change your password. Those messages will take you to a designated OIT Web page that will require your password information. Exchange users may also be contacted by OIT regarding their e-mail storage quota, but these messages will not ask for any login information.
To protect yourself:
1. Never reply to any e-mail message that requests any of your personal information (user ID, password, social security number, bank account, etc.)
2. Don't click on suspicious links in e-mails.
3. If you're not sure if an e-mail is legitimate, contact the OIT HelpDesk at 974-9900 or http://help.utk.edu.
OIT has many precautions in place to catch and/or prevent unsolicited e-mails, and we continue to work on catching the scams early. However, please be aware that sometimes such messages do get through, and you should be extremely careful when dealing with them. When one account at UT is compromised, everyone is affected.
Members of the university community are encouraged to be aware of issues related to phishing and other Internet scams. The Office of Information Technology always will have the latest security information and updates available on the Traffic Center Web site at http://oit.utk.edu/tc.
More specific information about phishing scams can be found at http://security.tennessee.edu/phishing.shtml.
If you have questions about this information, please contact the OIT HelpDesk at (865) 974-9900 or http://help.utk.edu.
Our office is always open to your feedback. If you have suggestions for improved service, please feel free to e-mail me directly.
Clicker Swap
Mon Aug 24 09:34:47 2009
From Wednesday, August 26 – Tuesday, September 1 (5 week days), the OIT Support Organization will be facilitating a Clicker Swap in the UC Bookstore Lobby. From 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. students who have an old CPS clicker can exchange it for varying levels of credit toward a new Turning Technologies clicker. Students must bring their old clickers during the swap period to receive the discounts toward the new clicker purchase price – even if they are not using a clicker in class this semester.
New Wireless Upgrade
Tue Aug 18 10:56:03 2009
Phase one of the new wireless upgrade to 802.11n is complete. As a result of the upgrade, UTK has a more secure, reliable, and available network for its users. For more information about the wireless upgrade, please go to http://wireless.utk.edu. As a part of the upgrade, the names of the wireless networks, known as the SSID's, have changed, and the names will now be broadcast so users will no longer have to perform the extra step of configuring the network name. The former network name, nomad, will remain live for a period of time while users transition to the new network. However, we encourage everyone to join the new and improved network.
The new network SSID's are:
ut-open – The nomad replacement
ut-wpa2 – The network that will provide encryption to the core of the network
ut-visitor – The network for guests and sponsored guests
eduroam – The global roaming federation for edu (www.eduroam.org)
Please note the IP range for the new wireless networks have changed from 160.36.x.x to 216.96.x.x. Instructions for joining the new wireless network can be found in the OIT Knowledgebase (http://oit.utk.edu/helpdesk/kb), or contact the OIT HelpDesk directly at 974-9900
UPS Upgrade
Fri Jun 26 09:35:49 2009
The UPS (uninterruptable power supply) in the SMC machine room will be upgraded this weekend (from 10:00 p.m. Saturday June 27, 2009 through noon Sunday June 28, 2009). Exchange (TMail), CPO, and IRIS will be down along with other services that depend on a database. Many other services not dependent on a database will not be affected by the UPS outage.
OIT apologizes for any inconvenience this outage may cause. If you have any questions about this outage please contact the Helpdesk at 974-9900.
New High Speed Internet Connection
Thu Jun 25 10:27:25 2009
OIT will be working to bring up a new high speed Internet connection on the UTK campus this Friday night, June 26th, starting at 10:00 P.M. The work is expected to last approximately 4 hours. From 10:00 pm through 2:00 am, Internet connectivity will be intermittent. Following that time, please report all network anomalies to the OIT HelpDesk at 974-9900.
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Office of Information Technology
Scott Studham
Chief Information Officer
Phone: 865-974-2081