Information Technology Announcements

We receive reports from time to time from members of our community who are frustrated with the receipt of unwanted phone calls and facsimiles. Occasionally, the the request is made to block incoming calls from particular telephone numbers. Unfortunately, we cannot. We recently came across a great article on the subject and wanted to share it with our community:

http://www.shellypalmer.com/2015/07/robocalls-the-do-not-call-registry-epidemic/

We have received several questions about technology purchases as faculty members plan their return and new faculty and staff members join the College, so we wanted to send a clarification about the protocol for technology purchases that include devices and software. All technology purchases should start with IT Support Services, x2526. We are responsible for ordering, the receipt, tracking, and maintenance of all technology resources purchased on behalf of the College.

Several campus members have received a phishing or fraudulent email designed to have you provide your Amherst log on credentials.  Reminder - never share your Amherst user name and password with anyone. Please keep your passwords private to protect yourself and the security of our network. We do not need your password in order to provide services to your account.

Here is a sample of one of the emails that we recently received:

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The Windows updates released by Microsoft this week are causing a significant number of College computers to hang, particularly during stage 3 of the installation. 

During an internal audit of laser printing charges, we discovered an error that caused the accounting system for laser printing to overcharge during specific conditions since January 2015. We have issued a credit to all accounts affected and will contact each student whose account was overcharged with a separate message. We sincerely apologize for this error. We have taken steps to prevent this kind of error from recurring and will also launch a study over the summer to determine if we need to make any other changes to print accounting.

On June 1, OAS will acquire the large format printers currently available at Seeley Mudd and will provide large format printing services for Amherst College moving forward. OAS will be able to provide the expertise and maintenance required to provide quality and accurate large format prints to our community. IT will continue to provide assistance to students and faculty in the preparation of documents for large format printing. OAS/Mailing Center is located in the basement of College Hall (the yellow building on the corner of Rts 116 & 9).

Sincerely, 

A few minor design updates to the campus directory will take place this week. The functionality of the campus directory is not changing at this time.

Please contact us at AskIT@amherst.edu, if you have any questions.

We've had many reports of a phishing attempt entitled "Dear User" that showed up in many College email inboxes this weekend. As always, please delete such blatant attempts to steal your Amherst username and password. 

We placed a sample of this email on our list of known phishing attacks:
https://www.amherst.edu/offices/it/knowledge_base/security/phishing

We realize that the semester is coming to a close. As you are trying to complete all projects and meet all deadlines, here is a short list of reminders that will help you finish the semester without technology incidents: 

Locations of Technology Support

Technology support for students is available at both Seeley Mudd and A-Level at Frost Library. For a detailed schedule, please visit our web site at https://www.amherst.edu/mm/470739.

Make Backups Often

This week, many people at Amherst have received a phishing or fraudulent email designed to have you provide your Amherst log on credentials.  Reminder - never share your Amherst user name and password with anyone.

A power supply for MacBook laptop computers made by the company "Safety Mark" has been found to be defective. If you use a power supply made by "Safety Mark," we urge you to discontinue its use immediately. If you use this power supply with a college-owned computer, please visit our office in Seeley Mudd so we may replace it with an original power supply from Apple.

The power supply from "Safety Mark" may short and/or overheat, creating a hazardous situation that could cause fire and/or an electric shock. Here are pictures of the power supply:

In an effort to protect the integrity of publicly viewable web forms on the college website, all web forms will include a challenge-response field known as “CAPTCHA", starting in early March. The CAPTCHA will only be present to users who are not logged into the college website.

We have received reports from several students to inform us that some websites required for assignments are not loading properly on campus workstations. Some of these websites require the use of Java, which over the past few years has become very restrictive in terms of security. In order for the websites to work properly, we will need to add an exception to the Java security settings so the websites faculty assign work across computing devices on campus.

Many people at Amherst have received a phishing or fraudulent email designed to have you provide your Amherst log on credentials.  Reminder - never share your Amherst user name and password with anyone.

The phishing email has the subject line:
{SPAM?} Update your Amherst College Account

We placed a sample of this email on our list of known phishing attacks:
https://www.amherst.edu/offices/it/knowledge_base/security/phishing#alert