We wanted to let you know that yet another email scam was sent to most of the campus last night – it’s another email size limit scam, and claims that you need to click a link to “re-validate” your mailbox, or in some cases to reply with your username and password so we can “reset” your email database.  These messages are phishing scams used to get your login information, which will be used by the scammers to hijack your email account (they’ll reset the password, set it to forward all incoming mail to another address of their choosing, and then use your account to send out huge amounts of further scam messages). This will result in the campus being blacklisted and unable to send email to major email providers for several day

So, please do not click the link or reply with your username and password – just delete the message.

This is the latest in a similar series of scams that have gone out at least once per month since late 2008, all of which claim your mailbox is over its size limit and ask you to click a link or reply with your login credentials.  There will likely be more of these, each with different wording and some more legitimate seeming than others – it’s important to be aware of these scams and always skeptical of messages which seem to come from ITS, but really don’t

Here are a few things you should keep in mind to help protect yourself and the college from email scams:

* We will never ask you for your username and password, especially in an email.
* Legitimate messages notifying you that you are over your size limit do go out – however, they are simply notifications and do not have any links to click.  If you see such a
message with a link, you should be immediately suspicious and contact us via phone if you’re unsure whether or not the message is legitimate.
* We post all official messages we send to the campus on our website.  While it’s easy for anyone to send a fake email and write whatever they want, then claim it is from
“system admininstrator” or “help desk” or “ITS”, they will not be able to fake a post on our website.  For example, you can check it right now and you will see a copy of this message posted there. (http://helpdesk.coloradocollege.edu)
* Here are a few common phrases used in phishing messages you should watch out for

“Please verify your account”
“If you don’t respond within 48 hours, your account will be closed / canceled”
“Click the link below to access your account”
“Click the link below to update your information”
“Click the link below to claim your prize”

For more information about how to protect yourself from scams, please see our webpage: http://helpdesk.coloradocollege.edu/index.php/tips-and-how-to/protect-your-computer/ the best defense will always be awareness of the issues involved!

Greetings all!

With the economic troubles that we are all going through here at Colorado College we have decided to change our Anti-Virus solution from Symantec Anti-Virus to Microsoft Forefront, saving the College over $20,000 annually. We are now in the process of removing Symantec and installing Forefront on all
College owned PC’s on our network. This process should be completed over the next two months.

You should not notice Symantec being uninstalled or Forefront being installed on your computer. It will happen automatically and by design should not interrupt your work. Again, this will ONLY affect PC Users. If you do notice anything or have any interruptions or errors on your computer because of this process please let us know by contacting the Help Desk (HelpDesk@ColoradoCollege.edu or x6449) so that we can rectify the issue.

Thank you for your time and patience during this process!

NOTE: The most common error that can come from this is when you open Microsoft Outlook. For instructions on how to remove the Symantec plug-in from Outlook click here.

Colorado College student email was down most of today, Sunday, August 9, because a student fell victim to last weekend’s phishing scam.  Emails sent to or from CC student email addresses between 10:36 AM and 4:44 PM today most likely did not reach their intended destination.  If you are a student and you sent email during those six hours, please re-send your message.  If you emailed a student account during that time, please, again, re-send your message.  Unfortunately, it is likely that any off-campus email sent to student accounts during those six hours will never be delivered.  All email services were restored by 11:00 PM.

As a reminder, if there is any chance you clicked on the link in the “re-validate” phishing scam last weekend (or any other scam), please change your password as soon as possible.  Instructions for doing that are available at http://helpdesk.coloradocollege.edu/index.php/tips-and-how-to/miscellaneous/change-your-password/.  The “re-validate” scammers have changed their tactics, and, if they have your password, not only will they send thousands of spam emails from your account, they will forward all of your incoming email to an off-campus address and then delete all email in your Inbox, Sent Items, and Deleted Items.  It is an extremely dangerous scam.  If you have any doubt about whether you answered the scam, please change your password immediately.

Please contact Joseph Sharman, x6301, if you have any questions about the email disruption.

Finally, please remember our pre-scheduled maintenance day tomorrow (Monday) morning, August 10.  Various network services will be down from 4:00 AM until 8:00 AM.  If you would like more details, please click here:
http://listserv1.coloradocollege.edu/digestmessages/jsharman313560.html.

We wanted to let you know that yet another email scam was sent to most of the campus on Saturday morning – the scam claims that you’re over your size limit and need to click a link to “re-validate” your mailbox.  Clicking the link will prompt you for your username and password, which will be used by the scammers to hijack your email account (they’ll reset the password, set it to forward all incoming mail to another address of their choosing, and then use your account to send out huge amounts of further scam messages).

Please do not click the link – just delete the message. The text of the scam is as follows:
_______________
Account Re-Validate

Your mailbox has exceeded the storage limit which is 20GB as set by your
administrator, you are currently running on 20.9GB, you may not be able to
send or receive new mail until you re-validate your mailbox.

To re-validate your mailbox please

CLICK HERE:

Thanks
System Administrator
______________

This is the latest in a similar series of scams that have gone out at least once per month since late 2008, all of which claim your mailbox is over its size limit and ask you to click a link.  There will likely be more of these, each with different wording and some more legitimate seeming than others – it’s important to be aware of these scams and always skeptical of messages which seem to come from ITS, but really don’t.

Here are a few things you should keep in mind to help protect yourself and the college from email scams:

* We will never ask you for your username and password, especially in an email.
* Legitimate messages notifying you that you are over your size limit do go out – however, they are simply notifications and do not have any links to click.  If you see such a message with a link, you should be immediately suspicious and contact us via phone if you’re unsure whether or not the message is legitimate.
* We post all official messages we send to the campus on our website.  While it’s easy for anyone to send a fake email and write whatever they want, then claim it is from “system admininstrator” or “help desk” or “ITS”, they will not be able to fake a post on our website.  For example, you can check it right now and you will see a copy of this message posted there. (http://helpdesk.coloradocollege.edu)
* Here are a few common phrases used in phishing messages you should watch out for:

“Please verify your account”
“If you don’t respond within 48 hours, your account will be closed / canceled”
“Click the link below to access your account”
“Click the link below to update your information”
“Click the link below to claim your prize”

For more information about how to protect yourself from scams, please see our webpage: http://helpdesk.coloradocollege.edu/index.php/tips-and-how-to/protect-your-computer/ the best defense will always be awareness of the issues involved!

We’ve updated our CC Important Dates file for the 09-10 year (July 09 – June 2010).  See our page for instructions on how to import the dates into your Outlook calendar: http://helpdesk.coloradocollege.edu/index.php/tips-and-how-to/email/add-important-cc-dates/

A new account expiration policy has gone into effect as of 6/1/09 – we’ve posted the update to our site if you would like to see the details of the new policy: http://helpdesk.coloradocollege.edu/index.php/policies-and-procedures/account-expiration/

Adobe recently announced a critical vulnerability in their Acrobat Reader product which already has known exploits, and have come out with a new version to fix the issue – since Adobe Acrobat Reader is a widely used product, this is an important update for everyone to get.  You can see more information about this update here: http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb09-04.html

* For CC-owned PCs, we will be pushing out the new version of Acrobat Reader over the next week.  The installation happens in the background (you won’t see any notification on the screen) and takes about 5-10 minutes.  Even if you’re working at the time, the only thing you may notice is your computer running a bit slower during the install.

* For personally owned PCs (including students), we recommend downloading and installing the latest version of Adobe Reader (9.1) as the best way to update.  We haven’t had much luck with Adobe’s software update process, and a clean installation of the newest version seems to be the best. You can find it at http://www.adobe.com – just click the “get adobe reader” button and proceed with the installation from there.

* For all Macintosh computers, if you have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed, check for an update by opening Adobe Reader and going to Help > Check for Updates.  If it finds one, please follow the instructions for installing the update right away.

Information Management has completed the Spring 2009 password audit. Of the 4000+ active accounts audited, 152 were cracked by the password auditing software. This is a definite improvement to last year’s audit. Congratulations to those of you who use strong passwords and defeated the password auditing software!

The 152 users whose passwords were cracked will be receiving an email in the next few days notifying them that they will be required to change their passwords by Monday, April 27^th 2009.

A good password has a mix of letters, numbers, and special characters, and no discernable names or words which could be found in the dictionary.  Try to make your password easy for you to remember, but look like a bunch of gibberish.  For example, turn the phrase “I like to study in Barnes 209” into the password “il2siB209” – presto, a good secure password that’s nice and easy to remember!

Please keep in mind that passwords are one of the most important aspects of IT security. The overall IT security infrastructure is only as strong as users’ passwords, and even a single password compromise can have a catastrophic impact upon that infrastructure.  For more information about how you can protect yourself from all manner of IT-related threats, including identity theft, please see our comprehensive webpage here: http://helpdesk.coloradocollege.edu/index.php/tips-and-how-to/protect-your-computer/

We will be taking PROWL offline early Wednesday morning, 3/18 (from 6:00am – 9:00am) in order to allocate more storage and make sure there won’t be any problems with storage space in PROWL through the end of this year.

It will be back up and running as normal no later than 9:00am.  Let us know if you have any questions!

As a reminder, Information Management’s next pre-scheduled systems maintenance day is tomorrow, Friday, March 13.  As a result, all network services will be down at various times between 6:00 AM and 12:00 PM.  This includes:

* Internet

* Email (messages sent to you will be queued, so they won’t be lost)

* Wireless

* All network drives

* All network printers

* All servers

* Banner / GoWEST

* C3PO

Our one remaining scheduled maintenance day for the 08-09 academic year is Friday, May 29, 2009  (after commencement).

Thanks to all of you for your patience and understanding!