Student

A number of Internet service providers have recently begun blocking messages from the Colorado.edu domain after an account on campus was compromised and started sending spam. The account has since been disabled but the Office of Information Technology (OIT) is aware of the following ISPs that are currently blocking some messages from our campus: AOL, Comcast, Road Runner and Jefferson County.

The campus has recently been targeted by malicious e-mails that appear to be attempts to gain user information such as passwords. One recent phishing e-mail was supposedly from the CULink Abuse Team urging account owners to take action to prevent account termination. Individuals who received this e-mail should simply delete the message.

If you or someone in your department responded to the CULink phishing attempt and entered user information, that person should contact the IT Service Center during regular business hours at 303-735-4357 (5-HELP from a campus phone).

When you need to brush up on software basics but don’t have the time to attend a training session, OIT’s Training pages are still your one-stop destination. Here you will find everything from online courses and videos to reference books and step-by-step tutorials.

From the Training page you can link to the multitude of online training modules, test prep, and online books available in SkillSoft.

The campus has recently been targeted by malicious e-mails that appear to be attempts to gain user information such as passwords and bank account information. One recent phishing e-mail was supposedly from Wells Fargo and titled “Important Notification from us.” Individuals who received these e-mails should simply delete the messages.

From time to time Internet service providers (ISPs) will block or slow delivery of e-mail sent from our campus. It's also not uncommon for our campus to slow the rate at which we receive e-mail from some ISP’s. Our e-mail being blocked often stems from a handful of @colorado.edu e-mail accounts being compromised and used to relay large amounts of spam. Similar issues with other, off-campus ISPs can cause us to slow the rate at which we receive some e-mail.

National Cyber Security Awareness Month is an annual effort to increase awareness and prevention of online security problems, spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA).

In the past week the campus spam filters have begun blocking a growing number of e-mail messages from Yahoo.com accounts as the number of spam messages from Yahoo servers has increased significantly. The campus’s filtering of e-mail from a specific server is based on reputation and the Yahoo reputation score has decreased to a point that many reputation-based filtering services, including ours, have begun applying a higher level of filtering.

The campus has recently been targeted by a number of malicious e-mails that appear to be attempts to gain user information such as passwords and bank account information. One recent phishing e-mail was supposedly from Wells Fargo and another related to closing webmail accounts. Individuals who received these e-mails should simply delete the messages.

In late September the Campus IT Security Office began implementing a new security measure which protects the campus from websites that are known to contain malware. Sites that are blocked are often trying to install software on visitor’s computers without their knowledge. The software can range from browser pop-ups to spyware and viruses. Once installed, these viruses are often used to gain access to computers in order to use them to send spam or for other nefarious purposes.

Antivirus software is one of the most important tools for safeguarding your computer, vital University information, and personal data from viruses and worms. All CU Boulder faculty, staff and students are encouraged to check their computers for a current version of antivirus software, as some software has been updated.

The IT Security Office (ITSO) recommended software is available on the OIT website at http://oit.colorado.edu/antivirus.

On Friday, September 30, Microsoft Forefront and Security Essentials, the two recommended antivirus solutions for campus network users, started misidentifying Google Chrome as a virus and automatically removing it from computers on which both are installed. Microsoft has since resolved the conflict by releasing new virus definitions for Forefront and Security Essentials but you must update your virus definitions (see instructions below) before you will be able to reinstall Chrome on affected computers.
 

The IT Security Office is implementing in phases a new security measure which will help protect the campus from websites that are known to contain malware and transmit data back to a hacker. On Tuesday, October 4, wireless web traffic from subnets that serve the East Campus will start routing through the new WSA (web security appliances) service. Then on Thursday, October 6, wireless traffic from the rest of campus will start routing through the WSA service. When the service is implemented at approximately 5:30 a.m.

The same UCB Wireless service that you use accross campus is now available on the Buff Bus and at Buff Bus stops. Learn more about UCB Wireless.

Now you can hop on the Buff Bus and the campus wireless network at the same time. That’s because for the first time, UCB Wireless is available on the Buff Bus. You connect to it just like you connect to UCB Wireless on campus. Using UCB Wireless allows you to access campus resources, such as file servers or library resources, which are restricted to the campus network.

Get off on the right foot. Find the information you need to efficiently tap into CU-Boulder IT services in the OIT Quick Start site.

OIT Quick Start is a combined effort with the goal of helping you efficiently tap into a comprehensive suite of IT services offered on the CU-Boulder campus.

The University of Colorado at Boulder encourages the fair use of copyrighted materials in support of its academic and research mission, and strives to provide clear guidance to faculty, students, and staff who wish to use copyrighted materials in their teaching and research. Go to the university's copyright and fair use website.