Information Systems Connection

We have received reports that some campus community members have been sent, what appears to be, legitimate invitations for connecting to friends via reunion.com.  Our investigation of this organization quickly suggests that has a high probability of being a scam and we strongly recommend that recipients of these messages “just hit delete”.  It is a very clever scam that is described here.

Reunion.com appears to be a real company but their business practices have been widely criticized.  If you Google the words reunion.com and scam over 1.7 million hits will be found!

Our advice?  JHD (just hit delete) to any email message you receive from reunion.com, regardless how familiar or legitimate it appears to be.  Don’t succumb to their cleverness!

Network access control (NAC) is a general term for several technologies that Information Systems is using to improve the security of EMU’s network and the devices that reside on it.

NAC was first implemented on EMU’s network in August 2008 for student connections, both in the residence halls and for any wireless connection on campus.  In years past, students had to drop off their computer for several hours at the beginning of the semester.  Then an I.S. employee installed software and ensured that the operating system was up-to-date, and that the computer was virus-free.  It was a labor-intensive process that only guaranteed that a computer met basic criteria at one point in time.  Computers are now scanned periodically for compliance, descreasing the likelihood of a malware outbreak or widespread exploitation of an operating system vulnerability.

Beyond keeping computers current, NAC allows I.S. to identify who is using the network.  This helps us balance a desired openness in the university environment with the need to stay in compliance with applicable laws and reduce the threat of damage to our systems and loss of data.  Further, the NAC system allows us to display a message to all running computers in the event of an emergency.

During November 2008, all remaining campus computers will be brought under the NAC umbrella.  (Computers not on campus will be exempt for the near term.)  This means slightly different things, depending on the computer type, and how it’s used.  For…

Institution-owned faculty-staff computers: Anti-virus and operating system must be current.  In the overwhelming majority of situations, this is already occurring, since I.S. manages these updates.  The computers that have fallen through the cracks should be caught by the NAC “net.”

Faculty-staff personal devices: Use of the ‘EMU’ wireless network (or a wired port) will require that the same criteria are met as with institution-owned computers, since the same level of access is being provided.  That includes Sophos anti-virus and that operating system updates are automatically installed.  Those who do not want to comply with those policies may choose to use the ‘EMU-Guest’ wireless network for a lower level of network access.

Computer labs: NAC will be implemented in a way that is transparent to the user.

The next phase in NAC system deployment will be to require user log-on for faculty and staff computers.  On Windows computers this will be transparent.  Users of OS X and other operating systems will be prompted to enter their credentials daily via a web page.

EMU now has a state-of-the-art emergency notification system.
Click here to learn about this service for current students and employees.
Click here for signup step-by-step instructions.

Computing resources for all EMU students are described in this PDF file. Resources include email, online storage, wireless, computer labs and Blackboard, the web-based course management system used by faculty to put course materials and collaboration resources online.

The summer of 2008 will likely be remembered by all members of the Information Systems department as one of the busiest ever. The following is a “Top-10″ review of the major initiatives Info Systems staff members have worked on this summer.

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Since the IE7 update, some users across campus have had the computer “hang” shortly after logging into Novell. This issues is currently being looked into. For the time being, IE7 is NOT being pushed to computers that haven’t had the update until this issues has been resolved.

To cope with the issue, when users eventually DO get logged into his/her computer, instead of shutting down for the evening do the following:

1. Go to Start–> Shutdown
2. Select “standby” from the drop-down menu
3. Click OK

CDBurnerXP Pro version 4 was released last week. It is available for installation via the EMU Applications folder on the desktop. Simply double-click the icon to install.

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Firefox has now been upgraded to the current version, 2.0.0.14. End users shouldn’t see this update because it will occur in the background the next time the computer is rebooted.

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Internet Explorer 7 will be pushed out to EMU fac/staff machines on May 5th at 4pm. Users who have questions about the upgrade should contact the Help Desk (x4357) concerning this update.

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Firefox has now been upgraded to the current version, 2.0.0.12. End users shouldn’t see this update because it will occur in the background the next time the computer is rebooted.

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