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Tag: security patches

Trend Micro update March 16 to impact campus Windows machines

Posted on by Anthony Phillips

K-State’s central IT Trend Micro antivirus servers will have Service Pack 1 Patch 2 installed on them the evening of Wednesday, March 16. Once all of the servers have been updated and verified stable, the patch will be released to campus Windows-based antivirus clients gradually, on a rolling basis over the next several days.

Everyone who is using Trend Micro on a Windows machine and is attached to one of the central servers should expect to be required to reboot their machine somewhere in that timeframe (March 16 and several days thereafter).

Continue reading “Trend Micro update March 16 to impact campus Windows machines” →

Six things you need to know about IT security at K-State

Posted on by Harvard Townsend (harv@ksu.edu)

K-State broke a record in 2010, but it is not a record to be proud of:  445 K-Staters were tricked into giving away their passwords to criminals in response to spear-phishing scam e-mails. The criminals then used the stolen information to sign in to webmail and send thousands of spam messages.

Obviously, the first thing on this semester’s top-six security list must be:

  1. Never give your password to anyone in an e-mail message! K-State was plagued by 406 instances of phishing scams in 2010 (compared to 296 in 2009)  that try to trick people into replying with their eID password. The hackers responsible for these scams are relentless! If you remember this one simple rule, you can prevent becoming a victim: K-State IT support staff will never ask for your password in an e-mail, nor will any legitimate business or organization. If you get such an e-mail, just delete it. The same holds if you get an email with a link to a web form that asks you to fill in your username and password – don’t do it!

    2. Continue reading “Six things you need to know about IT security at K-State” →

Five things you need to know about IT security at K-State

Posted on by Harvard Townsend (harv@ksu.edu)

Thousands of new faculty, staff, and students have arrived and a new semester has begun, so it is time to remind everyone of their personal responsibility in protecting themselves online and keeping K-State information and technology safe. To quote IT security experts, “the Internet is a bad neighborhood,”* and based on the number of security incidents at K-State thus far in 2009, it’s getting worse. You can still function safely online, though, if you take the time to learn about security and “think before you click.” Here are five things you need to know about IT security at K-State:

  1. Never give your password to anyone in an e-mail message. K-State has been plagued by more than 200 instances of e-mail scams over the last year that try to trick people into replying with their eID password (yes, that’s nearly one per day). In fact, thus far in 2009, nearly 300 K-Staters have had their eID password stolen this way. If you remember this one simple rule, you can prevent becoming a victim of these scams:  K-State IT support staff will never ask for your password in an e-mail, nor will any legitimate business or organization. If you get such an e-mail, just delete it.

    2. Continue reading “Five things you need to know about IT security at K-State” →

Microsoft releases important security patch

Posted on by Harvard Townsend (harv@ksu.edu)

At noon today (Tuesday, July 28), Microsoft releases a rare “out-of-band” security patch that includes a critical security patch to Internet Explorer and a patch for Visual Studio. Due to the security risk, details of patches are typically not disclosed until the patch is released, so we cannot yet assess the risk to K-State. However, the fact that Microsoft issued this patch before the regular second-Tuesday-of-the-month patch release implies a serious threat. Thus, K-Staters are encouraged to apply the patch when it becomes available. For most people, this will happen automatically.

Continue reading “Microsoft releases important security patch” →

Apply today’s Microsoft security patches ASAP

Posted on by Harvard Townsend (harv@ksu.edu)

Since today (July 14) is the second Tuesday of the month, Microsoft is releasing its usual monthly security patches for the Windows operating system and select Microsoft applications. While it is always important to apply these and other security patches as soon as possible, it’s particularly important this month because at least two of the six patches fix vulnerabilities that are being actively exploited.

One of the patches fixes a critical vulnerability in the Microsoft Video ActiveX Control that has often been in the security news in the past week. Nearly 1,000 websites in China are known to be infected with a malicious script that exploits this vulnerability. Continue reading “Apply today’s Microsoft security patches ASAP” →

Five things you need to know about IT security at K-State

Posted on by Harvard Townsend (harv@ksu.edu)

A new semester has begun, so it is time to remind everyone of their personal responsibility in helping protect themselves online and keep K-State information and technology safe. To quote IT security experts, “the Internet is a bad neighborhood,”* and based on the number of security incidents at K-State in 2008, it’s getting worse. You can still function safely online, though, if you take the time to learn about security and “think before you click.” Here are five things you should know about IT security at K-State: Continue reading “Five things you need to know about IT security at K-State” →

No more security patches for Firefox 2; upgrade to version 3 now

Posted on by Harvard Townsend (harv@ksu.edu)

In December 2008, Mozilla released the last security update for all platforms of version 2 of the popular Firefox web browser (version 2.0.0.20 for Windows, MacOS X, and Linux). Version 2 has reached its end-of-life for updates, so all users of Firefox are urged to upgrade to version 3 as soon as possible. As always, K-State faculty/staff should talk to their IT support person before updating to version 3, in case they have special requirements for software installation on university computers.

To determine the version of Firefox you are using, open Firefox, select the Help pull-down menu, and click About Mozilla Firefox. Continue reading “No more security patches for Firefox 2; upgrade to version 3 now” →