Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Go Phish?

What is "Phishing"?


Phishing, as Wikipedia defines it, is:
"the attempt to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and sometimes, indirectly, money) by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.  Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, banks, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure unsuspecting public."

The email below is a phishing scam.  Can you find the clues?




How to Spot Phishing:



  1. Check that you know the name of the person sending the email. Even if the name on the email is familiar, that's not enough. Anyone can create an email account with a name that you know.
  2. Check that the email is coming from our domain (...@manhattan.edu). In this example, the email is coming from "...@manasquanboe.org". That's a huge clue that something is not right.
  3. Do not click on suspicious links. First, hover over links to see where they point. Links can be deceptive. A link can say one thing, and point to a totally different website. For example, this link points to the ITS website. The text claims that the link points to our ITS website, but it doesn't actually point to the ITS website. Tip: Hover over links before clicking on them. When you hover over a link, the website that it points to will appear in the lower left hand corner of the browser window. If the website does not look legitimate, do not click on the link.
  4. Make sure the email has our ITS Footer. The "ITS help desk, ADMIN TEAM" in the example above is not what an email from us would look like. Our emails will always include the following red footer:


When in doubt:

Call us at (718) 862-7973 or forward the email to us at "ITS@manhattan.edu".

Friday, February 13, 2015

Ticketing System Maintenance

The ITS ticketing system will be down for an upgrade from 8AM - 12PM on Saturday February 14th.  This means that emails to its@manhattan.edu, #tellits submissions, and text messages to ITS will not be received until after 12PM.  If you need assistance during this time period you should call Client Services at 718-862-7973.  No other methods of contacting ITS will work during this time.

Thursday, February 12, 2015

Planned Outage - Banner & Self-Service Applications

Administrative Systems Maintenance

Information Technology Services will be performing Oracle maintenance to the administrative system.  This scheduled maintenance will require the server to be off line on February 14th between 9:00pm - 10:00pm.  Access to Banner and Self-service will be impacted for 1 hour.

Thank you for your patience during this short outage.

Information Technology Services

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Today is "Safer Internet Day"

Celebrate by making sure your JasperNet account is properly protected. Google has put together a step-by-step Security Checkup, and it only takes a few seconds. Give it a go: Google's Security Checkup

Friday, February 6, 2015

Using your JasperNet account to Auto Backup your photos

Have you ever lost or broken a phone or camera? Have you ever lost invaluable photos and wished you had backed them up at some point?

Your JasperNet account (via Google+) has a feature built into it that allows you to Auto Backup your photos. The link below will bring you to our documentation for how to get started with Auto Backup:

Keep your electronic devices safe! And your data safer!

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Moodle Theme Upgrade Planned for this Evening 2/4

ITS plans to upgrade the Moodle course server theme this evening. The upgrade, which will not result in any downtime, will provide enhanced usability for instructors and students.

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Need another New Years Resolution?

How did your first New Years Resolution work out? Need a new one? Help us try to keep the computer labs germ-free!

Dispensers containing hand-sanitizer have been installed in the public facing computer labs. The dispensers, usually one per lab, can be found near the door(s), and they look like this:



Using hand-sanitizer on your way in and out of the labs will help us keep the labs clean and hopefully germ-free! Happy new New Years resolution!

Monday, February 2, 2015

MS HUP - Employees Can Purchase Microsoft Office at a Discounted Rate for a Personal Device

Manhattan College employees can purchase one license of Microsoft Office at a discounted rate through Microsoft's Home Use Program (MS HUP). Your work computer should already have Microsoft Office installed on it, but now you can install Office on your personal device for a reasonable cost (approximately $9.95).

We created a Knowledge Base Article to provide step-by-step directions for acquiring Microsoft Office at the discounted rate.

More information about MS HUP can be found here in our service catalog or here on Microsoft's website.