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Author: Rebecca Gould

Phone cable replacement Aug 11-14

Posted on by Rebecca Gould

Networking & Telecommunications Services needs to replace cable that was
damaged last year when the steam tunnels were flooded. While a fix has
been in place, the work occurring next weekend will permanently repair the cable. Repairs will occur outside of normal working hours and will only affect telephone lines and not data connections.

Work begins on Thursday, August 11 at 5 p.m. The first building to be repaired will be Anderson Hall. Service work will be completed during the evening and telephones in Anderson Hall will be back in operation by 8 a.m. Friday morning. Phone cable replacement will continue after 5 p.m. on Friday, August 12 and run through the weekend.

All phones should be operational by 8 a.m. Monday morning, August 15. If
users experience any outages after these repairs, please call the repair line at 532-7111. Updates will be posted on the www.ksu.edu/its/status page.

Buildings where phone cable will be repaired include:
Anderson Hall
Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art
Calvin Hall
Fairchild Hall
Kedzie Hall
McCain Auditorium
Nichols Hall
Thompson Hall

Resource 25 and Salina General Ledger available

Posted on by Rebecca Gould

Resource25 and Salina General Ledger applications were back online by midday Monday, July 11. The outage was due to disk drive failures.  ITS worked through the weekend to troubleshoot and restore these systems.

An announcement in Monday morning’s K-State Today reported that DARS is scheduled for an upgrade and would be unavailable July 18 and 19. Because DARS was one of the applications that was offline last week, ITS decided to move forward with the upgrade and move to the converged infrastructure. DARS will continue to be offline. Our goal is to restore DARS to full service by July 13.

ITS staff appreciates the patience of campus while we worked with our vendor partners to troubleshoot and restore these important systems. The status of IT resources are posted on the ITS Status page.

Information Technology Staff present at CHECK 2016

Posted on by Rebecca Gould

K-State’s Information Technology Staff were well-represented at the Conference on Higher Education Computing in Kansas (CHECK) 2016 held at Washburn University on May 23-24.

CHECK 2016 attendees from K-State

Presenters and presentations included:

  • Nick Brown, systems coordinator, and Andrew Kuehler, systems administrator, presented on “Simplifying and centralizing application management in windows”.
  • Kathleen Adams, operations center staff, shared insights about “Phishing – not just for days at the lake!”
  • Elizabeth Shannon, information security and compliance, presented “Whatddya mean I’m a service provider”.

For more information about CHECK 2016, visit the conference website.

Beware of new Locky malware that uses malicious Word macros

Posted on by Rebecca Gould

“Locky” is a new “crypto-ransomware” type of malware that locks up your computer files and requires a monetary payment to unlock them. Locky is delivered via email as an invoice in a Word attachment.

Details from one ransomware email are shown below; this may be one of many variations.

Subject line: ATTN: Invoice J-98223146

Message:  Please see the attached invoice (Microsoft Word Document) and remit payment according to the terms listed at the bottom of the invoice.

If you click on the attachment, you are encouraged to “enable macros”. If you comply and enable macros, malicious code is installed and the malware attack begins. The malware will begin to encrypt your files and attach the “Locky” extension. A ransom note is then left in every directory that has been infected, informing you to make a payment in order to unlock your files.

For specific details about the malware and what it will do to infected systems, see Trend Micro’s article “New Crypto-Ransomware Locky Uses Malicious Word Macros.”

If you receive a ransomware email, do NOT click on the attachment. Send the original email with full Internet headers to abuse@k-state.edu, and delete the email.  How to include full email headers is at k-state.edu/its/security/report/getheaders.html.

KSIS returned to service

Posted on by Rebecca Gould

Late Wednesday, Oct. 28, Information Technology Services staff observed issues with KSIS after replacing a disk that the vendor said would be nondisruptive. Staff worked through the night to resolve the issue. KSIS was returned to service around 2:15 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29.

Information Technology Services apologizes that the enrollment function was unavailable during this time.

Fall 2015 Shred Day is Tuesday, Oct. 6

Posted on by Rebecca Gould

Shred Day is scheduled 8:30-11 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 6, to properly dispose of university paper records on the Manhattan and Salina campuses.

Departments can place their paper documents with personal identity information (Social Security numbers, birth dates, credit card numbers, etc.) in designated bags and boxes to:

  • Manhattan campus:  Deliver to Mid-Campus Drive near the K-State Student Union.
  • Salina campus:  Deliver to the loading area between the east and west wings of the Technology Center.

Continue reading “Fall 2015 Shred Day is Tuesday, Oct. 6” →

Network maintenance begins 11:59 p.m. on April 13

Posted on by Rebecca Gould

Network and Telecommunications Services (NTS) will be performing network maintenance from 11:59 p.m. Monday, April 13, to 4 a.m. Tuesday, April 14, to complete the installations that began on April 6.

NTS will be moving Power Plant building connections and services over to new hardware. Because of the networking upgrades that occurred last week, this maintenance only entails moving connections.  Users will experience brief outages in both wired and wireless service as the connections are upgraded. This maintenance is necessary to enable upgraded features in the new core routers.

If you have any questions regarding this maintenance, please email the IT Help Desk at helpdesk@k-state.edu.

K-State Invitational GameJam Feb 6-8

Posted on by Rebecca Gould

The first CIS@K-State Invitational GameJam will be held February 6-8 at K-State. This is a 48-hour video game design competition for novices and experienced programmers, game designers, artists, musicians, and writers. Teams of one to four members will be given a “secret” theme at the beginning of the competition. If a student doesn’t want to go it alone, the organizers will help them join a group.

Only students can participate in the game competition. Faculty and staff are welcome to observe.

Free T-Shirts, meals and snacks for all who participate! Prizes will be awarded at the end of the competition on Sunday. Registration is limited and closes after February 1.

To register visit: https://gdc.cis.ksu.edu/annual-game-jam/

For additional information, contact Nathan Bean at nhbean@ksu.edu or Ben Ward at bward@ksu.edu.

Qualtrics Offline Mobile App for iOS and Android devices

Posted on by Rebecca Gould

The Qualtrics Offline Mobile App (for iPad, iPhone, and Android tablets and smartphones running Android 4.0 and later) is a new application available for iOS and Android devices, allowing the administration of surveys without an Internet connection. Responses can be collected in the field and uploaded to Qualtrics once there is an Internet connection.  Continue reading “Qualtrics Offline Mobile App for iOS and Android devices” →