As mentioned in last week’s email, Computing Services has now finished taking all actions to patch our systems due to the Heartbleed security vulnerability. Now that our systems are patched, ALL students and employees will be required to change their passwords. This is a direct result of the type of vulnerability that Heartbleed exposed. Your account cannot be considered fully secure until you have reset your password. Although there is no indication that our systems have been exploited, all passwords must be changed on our systems if there is even a chance they could have been compromised.

*****Employees and students have until May 14, 2014 to change their passwords. If the password for your account has not been changed by that date, your account will be locked out.

All users can change their passwords by visiting www.adams.edu, clicking either Faculty/Staff (for employees) or One Stop (for students) and clicking the `Change your password’ button. As a reminder, we will NEVER ask you to share your username or password through email! ******

If you have any questions or concerns, or would like assistance in going through the password reset process, please contact the ASU Computing Services Helpdesk at 719-587-7741. You may also stop by the Helpdesk Monday through Friday 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM and we will have one of our technicians help you with the process.

***Password Guidelines***

When you change your password you will need to choose a new, unique, and strong password. Please see our helpful How-To on creating a strong password, including some dos and don’ts:

http://howto.adams.edu/index.php/Password_Tips

What NOT to do when choosing a Password:

-Do NOT choose a password based on personal data that is easily obtained, such as your name, username, address, your pet’s name, or your favorite sport.

-Do NOT use a password that is a word in the dictionary or as keyboard sequence, such as QWERTY or 12345.

-Do NOT choose a password that is a simple transformation of a word. For example, password123 is not a good password, since 123 is a common, simple transformation of a word.

-Do NOT use the same password for multiple systems. If you use a password for your ASU account you should not re-use that password on personal sites, such as banking or social media. Every site should use a unique password.

-We strongly recommend using a password manager. Details on the recommended password managers can be found in the password tips link above.

***Got questions? Come talk to CS staff at a technology update discussion session***

All students and employees are invited and encouraged to attend a briefing by the Computing Services staff next week that will provide further information regarding the Heartbleed vulnerability, and share secure password management practices. A follow-up email will be sent out shortly with the dates and location of these meetings.

***More information regarding Heartbleed***

What is heartbleed?

Heartbleed is a vulnerability in OpenSSL that lets an attacker read the memory of a web server, which could include information such as usernames, passwords, emails, and credit card information. Some ASU services use OpenSSL, which is why we are forcing a password change for all our users.

Should I change all my passwords?

If the website you use also used OpenSSL, then you should change your password. CNET has a list of the top 100 websites, including if they were vulnerable, if they have been patched, and if you need to change your password.

http://www.cnet.com/how-to/which-sites-have-patched-the-heartbleed-bug/

Thanks for your help in keeping ASU Computing resources secure!

Computing Services

As you may have already heard in the news, there is a massive security vulnerability called ‘heartbleed’ that is causing major havoc throughout the Internet. ASU Computing Services has already begun taking measures to eliminate the vulnerability on the servers that are affected. In order to fully finish securing our systems, there will be some outages in service as outlined below:

-Today (4/10/14) beginning at 5:30 PM, we will be patching our Aruba wireless system. This will take down all wireless Internet services for approximately 60 minutes.

-Beginning tomorrow afternoon (Friday) various web services such as the main campus web server, the employee email server and other, less noticeable services will be briefly unavailable as we apply our new security certificate. Estimated outages are anticipated at 10 minutes or less.

***Passwords, please read***

This is a very serious vulnerability that has impacted a major percentage of Internet web services. Computing Services will be sending out an announcement next week indicating when we want ALL ASU users to change their passwords. We are timing this forced password reset to coincide with the completion of our patching of the back-end systems that have been affected. When you receive this email next week, PLEASE follow the instructions to reset your password, but as always, NEVER send your username and password in an email to ANYONE.

Also, Computing Services strongly urges everyone to consider changing ALL of the passwords that they use for other Internet services such as personal Yahoo and Gmail accounts, banking sites, social networking sites, and anything else that you log into on the Internet.

If you have any questions at all or concerns regarding this important issue, please contact the ASU Computing Services Helpdesk at x7741 or via email at computingservices@adams.edu

****CS Maintenance for tonight, 4/10/14****

Finally, Computing Services will be performing a few other maintenance tasks beginning tonight at 9:00 PM:

-Employees are encouraged to log off but leave their computers on overnight to assist with the patching process of Windows, Office, Flash and Firefox.

– Also at 9:00 PM and lasting roughly 30 minutes, Computing Services will be performing maintenance on the campus TEC Classrooms. While we don?t anticipate any issues with this maintenance, please let us know if you experience any issues in the TEC Classrooms on Friday morning.

Computing Services thanks you for your patience and understanding as we perform these critical maintenance activities. As always, if you have any questions, please call the ASU Computing Services Helpdesk at 7741 or contact us via email at computingservices@adams.edu

Thank you!

Computing Services

The following maintenance activities will take place tonight, Thursday March 27th during our normally scheduled maintenance window beginning at 9:00 PM:

Beginning at 9:00 PM and lasting roughly 1 hour, all Banner services will be unavailable while we perform maintenance on the campus Banner Document Management system.

Also beginning at 9:00 PM and lasting roughly 3 hours, the campus file server will be unavailable as we perform an upgrade to the system. The services affected include home and shared directories for all of our users.

Also at 9:00 PM and lasting roughly 30 minutes, Computing Services will be performing maintenance on the campus TEC Classrooms. While we don’t anticipate any issues with this maintenance, please let us know if you experience any issues in the TEC Classrooms on Friday morning.

Finally, Computing Services will be installing security patches on employee computers for the following programs: Flash, Shockwave, Thunderbird and Secunia. Employees are encouraged to log out but leave their computers turned on to aid in the successful installation of this patch.

Computing Services thanks you for your patience and understanding as we perform these critical maintenance activities. As always, if you have any questions, please call the ASU Computing Services Helpdesk at 7741 or contact us via email at computingservices@adams.edu

Thank you!

Computing Services

The following maintenance activities will take place tonight, Thursday March 20th during our normally scheduled maintenance window beginning at 9:00 PM:

Beginning at 9:00 PM, Computing Services will be rebooting several campus servers including the campus AD and Microsoft Print server, and the web database server. This will briefly affect user’s abilities to log-in/print in the labs, and access the campus blog and one-stop services. These services will be sporadically unavailable until roughly 10:00 PM.

Also beginning at 9:00 PM and lasting roughly 60 minutes, Computing Services will be performing maintenance on the campus TEC Classrooms. While we don’t anticipate any issues with this maintenance, please let us know if you experience any issues in the TEC Classrooms on Friday morning.

Finally, to resolve issues with the failed iTunes and QuickTime patches from last week, Computing Services will be pushing out an updated fix. Employees are encouraged to log out but leave their computers turned on to aid in the successful installation of this patch.

Computing Services thanks you for your patience and understanding as we perform these critical maintenance activities. As always, if you have any questions, please call the ASU Computing Services Helpdesk at 7741 or contact us via email at computingservices@adams.edu

Thank you!

Computing Services

Computing Services has received reports that after the updates on last Thursday evening (3/13/14) some computers on campus were unable to run iTunes.

Computing Services has published a fix for the iTunes issue in the ASU Software Center. If you are one of the individuals impacted by the failed iTunes patch, you can repair it by clicking on the fix in the Software Center. The fix will only need to be applied once per computer.

For more detailed instructions, please visit this how-to:

https://howto.adams.edu/index.php/Repair_iTunes_in_Software_Center

Our apologies for any inconvenience to those that were affected. If you have any questions please contact the Helpdesk at x7741. We have technicians on-hand that can assist with the process.

Thanks!
Computing Services
computingservices@adams.edu

719-587-7741

The following maintenance activities will take place tonight, Thursday March 13th during our normally scheduled maintenance window beginning at 9:00 PM:

Employees are urged to log out but leave their computers on to assist in the patching of the following programs: Windows, Office, Quicktime, Firefox, Thunderbird, Flash, and Adobe Reader.

Beginning at 9:00 PM, Computing Services will be rebooting several campus servers including the campus employee email server. These services will be sporadically unavailable until roughly 10:00 PM.

Also beginning at 9:00 PM and lasting roughly 30 minutes, Computing Services will be performing maintenance on the campus TEC Classrooms. While we don’t anticipate any issues with this maintenance, please let us know if you experience any issues in the TEC Classrooms on Friday morning.

Computing Services thanks you for your patience and understanding as we perform these critical maintenance activities. As always, if you have any questions, please call the ASU Computing Services Helpdesk at 7741 or contact us via email at computingservices@adams.edu

Thank you!

Computing Services

The following maintenance activities will take place tonight, Thursday March 6th during our normally scheduled maintenance window beginning at 9:00 PM:

Beginning at 9:00 PM, Computing Services will be rebooting several campus servers including the campus blog server, how-to wiki, cs wiki, email lists, and the main campus storage system which includes email for employees and home and shared directories. These services will be sporadically unavailable until roughly 10:00 PM.

Also beginning at 9:00 PM and lasting roughly 30 minutes, Computing Services will be performing maintenance on the campus TEC Classrooms. While we don’t anticipate any issues with this maintenance, please let us know if you experience any issues in the TEC Classrooms on Friday morning.

Computing Services thanks you for your patience and understanding as we perform these critical maintenance activities. As always, if you have any questions, please call the ASU Computing Services Helpdesk at 7741 or contact us via email at computingservices@adams.edu

Thank you!

Computing Services

Computing Services will be performing significant maintenance activities this week, below are the details including dates and times for the various activities:

*********Scheduled Campus Wifi Outage and maintenance tonight 2/13/14 at 6:00 PM*********

Computing Services must perform an upgrade to our campus wireless system in order to support the newer types of Access Points that we are preparing to deploy on campus. Computing Services has looked at the peak usage history of our campus wifi and have determined that an outage from 6:00 PM until roughly 7:00 PM tonight will be the least impactful based on typical campus usage. During this time, all wireless Internet and networking services will be unavailable as the upgrades are performed on the controller and all campus access points.

*********Regular Thursday Night Maintenance Activities for tonight 2/13/14*********

The following maintenance activities will take place tonight, Thursday February 13th during our normally scheduled maintenance window beginning at 9:00 PM:

Employees are urged to log out, but leave their computers turned on to assist in the patching of various software packages. The software packages that will be updated are Java, Windows, Office, Adobe Flash and Reader, Thunderbird, Firefox, iTunes, Quicktime and Pidgin. By leaving your computers turned on but logged off, this will ensure your computer receives the updates during non-work hours, and reducing any impact on your daily work activities.

All Banner systems will be unavailable from 9:00 PM until sometime around 11:00 PM as Computing Services performs required upgrades to Financial Aid and the BDMS system.

Also beginning at 9:00 PM various campus web services will be unavailable as security updates are installed and the servers are rebooted. This includes about 10 minutes of downtime for the campus main website at www.adams.edu

*******Banner Maintenance and Outage this Saturday, 2/13/14 from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM*******

Finally, this Saturday beginning at roughly 8:00 AM, all Banner services will be down as we perform maintenance on our Database servers. We hope to have all services restored to the Banner systems by 10:00 if not sooner.

Computing Services thanks you for your patience and understanding as we perform these critical maintenance activities. As always, if you have any questions, please call the ASU Computing Services Helpdesk at 7741 or contact us via email at computingservices@adams.edu

Thank you!

Computing Services

The following maintenance activities will take place tonight, Thursday February 6th during our normally scheduled maintenance window beginning at 9:00 PM:

All Banner systems will be unavailable from 9:00 PM until sometime around 3:00 AM as Computing Services performs security updates to several Banner RedHat servers.

Also beginning at 9:00 PM and lasting roughly 30 minutes, Computing Services will be performing maintenance on the campus LDAP system. During this time, password changes from the resources pages will be unavailable, but no other user services should be impacted.

From 9:00 PM until roughly 9:15 PM, the campus SQL server will be rebooted. User impact will be minimal.

Computing Services thanks you for your patience and understanding as we perform these critical maintenance activities. As always, if you have any questions, please call the ASU Computing Services Helpdesk at 7741 or contact us via email at computingservices@adams.edu

Thank you!

Computing Services

The following maintenance activities will take place tonight, Thursday January 30th during our normally scheduled maintenance window beginning at 9:00 PM:

All Banner systems will be unavailable from 9:00 PM until sometime around 3:00 AM as Computing Services performs updates to the back-end storage system for Banner.

Also beginning at 9:00 PM and lasting until roughly 2:00 AM, Computing Services will be performing maintenance on the campus employee email and home/shared directory back-end storage system. During this time, employee email and home and shared directories may be intermittently unavailable.

From 9:00 PM until roughly 10:00 PM, the server which hosts our website at www.adams.edu will be down for maintenance.

Computing Services thanks you for your patience and understanding as we perform these critical maintenance activities. As always, if you have any questions, please call the ASU Computing Services Helpdesk at 7741 or contact us via email at computingservices@adams.edu

Thank you!

Computing Services