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“Office 365 verification” phishing scam from compromised student account

Monday, September 3rd, 2018

Please be on the lookout for the following phishing scam coming this morning from a compromised student account:

The subject will be “Office365 E-mail Verification” (or a variation) and says that “you recently made a request to terminate your Office365 mail” and to click on a link to cancel this termination.

The mail should be immediately suspicious to most people with common sense and awareness of phishing scams, but here are a few signs:

  1. Why is a student account sending you mail about your “termination” of an Office365 account?
  2. Why are they threatening you to verify or lose your account?
  3. Why does the link point to a site that is not in the university network and is in Brazil of all places?
  4. Why is something as “important” as this being sent in a non-secure email? 

Here is an example of one of these phishing emails that several observant students and colleague have sent me this morning already!

If you have accidentally clicked on the link and given your login details to the phishers it is vitally important that you immediately go to the USERADM page (either http://www.sun.ac.za/password or www.sun.ac.za/useradm and change your password immediately. (Make sure the new password is completely different and is a strong password that will not be easily guessed, as well as changing the passwords on your social media and private e-mail accounts, especially if you use the same passwords on these accounts.)

If you have received mail that looks like the one above, please immediately report it to the Information Technology Security Team using the following method: (especially if it looks like it comes from a university address) Once you have reported it, delete it immediately.

  1. Start up a new mail addressed to csirt@sun.ac.za (CC: sysadm@sun.ac.za)
  2. Use the Title “SPAM” (without quotes) in the Subject.
  3. With this New Mail window open, drag the suspicious spam/phishing mail from your Inbox into the New Mail Window. It will attach the mail as an enclosure and a small icon with a light yellow envelope will appear in the attachments section of the New Mail.
  4. Send the mail.

[ARTICLE BY DAVID WILES]

 

Exam access app a resounding success

Thursday, August 30th, 2018

Until recently granting access to examinations for students has been a manual and time-consuming process of checking-off access lists. However, thanks to new technology developed by Information Technology in collaboration with the Examination Office in the Registrar’s Division, this is no longer the case.    

Since June this year, the identification of students for access to examination venues has been facilitated with the use of cell phones at each venue. 

A student’s student card is held against the back of the cell phone, and on the screen, it is indicated whether the student is supposed to write the examination in the specific module in the specific venue. The screen will display a green mark if the student is at the correct exam venue (see image right) and a red cross if not. If the student is at the wrong venue, the screen will indicate where the student should be for the exam or test.  

This will result in access to examination venues being easily and swiftly controlled and will certainly simplify and improve the function of access control with regard to examination venues.  

This easier scanning process is made possible by the NFC (near-field communications) chip on Android phones which communicates with the MIFARE chip embedded in the student card,  and the identification information is then used by the phone app to look up the student’s exam venue. The exam venue and module information come from the Student Information System. 

Tests were first conducted on a small scale during the November 2017 examination and the technology was rolled out fully for the June 2018 examination. It was a resounding success.  

 Emce Louw, Head of the Exam Office experienced the impact first-hand as the process was driven from her office. This included loading the cell phones, setting up data, training the convenors responsible for scanning at the venues and collecting the phones after the exams. She received overwhelmingly positive feedback from invigilators and students alike: 

 

 

 

 

Scan van studentekaarte is fantasties! Ek het gister 4de jaar Megatronika studente gehad. Hulle was vreeslik beïndruk met die scanning!”

The development and successful completion of the technology was a cross-functional team effort. Hendrik le Roux from Information Technology’s Access Control Division was the project manager and Guzelle Hendricks was responsible for business analysis for the two three-month phases of the project which ran from the end of 2017 to June 2018.  

In addition to Hendrik and Guzelle the following staff played a key role in getting the project off the ground – Phillip Greeff (TAS), Gregory Isaacs (TAS), Anna-Mari du Toit, Marc-Allen Johnson, Jeremy van Rooyen, Charles Hopkins, who wrote the app and Elmar Matthee who was responsible for the back-end development. On the side of the functional stakeholders, besides for Emce, Neels Fourie (Deputy Registrar), and Jan du Toit and Helene Nieuwoudt (both from SISS) participated in the project.

High internet costs? Here’s why.

Monday, April 9th, 2018

Occasionally we receive enquiries regarding seemingly high Inetkey costs, especially from students. Usually, the causes are fairly straight-forward and can be easily prevented. 

It’s very difficult to say what is causing or what the source of the traffic is without actually looking at your Inetkey logs. So, to start, before contacting us about your Inetkey usage, first look at your logs on http://www.sun.ac.za/useradm and go to the [View Internet Usage] tool and under “View Type” select “Source” and select USER to refresh the display. If you take note of all the IP addresses and see if they are in fact your devices, you will get a better idea of which device is generating the traffic and at which times.

Keep in mind that Stellenbosch University has numerous times been rated as having the fastest internet in South Africa. Current speed tests show that the download speed is 95.29 MB per second and an upload speed of 58.12 MB per second. Subsequently, you can easily run up a massive Inetkey bill within minutes.

The following are a few potential causes for high Inetkey usage:

  • Windows 10 updates that cannot easily be switched off with traditional means. However, if the device is on the SU network and set up to receive updates from IT’s WSUS server, updates will be downloaded locally and not run via Inetkey.
  • Updates stopping and restarting or not completing. Windows 10 1709 Creative Update is a little under 4Gb.
  • Inetkey being left open on a device that is unattended overnight or during classes.
  • Video streaming from sites not on the firewall exception list. Watching an HD streamed movie during the day and evening can generate 3Gb of data per hour.
  • Using a laptop as a wifi hotspot for a cell phone to save on data costs.
  • Using filesharing protocols like BitTorrent. Remember that uploads and downloads both generate traffic. If you use BitTorrent you are also seeding and will also pay for someone downloading your own files.
  • Syncing files to DropBox.
  • Weak passwords allowing neighbours and friends to share internet connections from adjacent rooms.
  • Passwords being leaked to a friend or partners and then abused at a later stage.
  • Viruses or malware included in BHO that spam and generate traffic. Often compromised e-mail accounts will cause high internet usage, because InetKey and email use the same password.
  • Inetkey accounts being used on multiple devices.

If none of these seems to be causing your high Inetkey usage, you can ask Information Technology to investigate your internet usage (or issues). If you have a query send a complaint within 14 days to helpinfo@sun.ac.za. The cost of an enquiry is R200.00 per enquiry. If an error is found, the administrative fee will not be levied.

[Information supplied by David Wiles]

 

Teach and Learn with MATLAB and Simulink

Wednesday, February 21st, 2018

Where Will MATLAB Take You Today?

Stellenbosch University has a Total Academic Headcount (TAH) license for MATLAB, Simulink, and add-on products. You may use these products for teaching, research, and learning. The license allows individuals to install the products on university-owned equipment, as well as personally owned computers.

Get Access Today: http://rga.sun.ac.za/firga/matlab.html

New SUNLearn mobile app available for download

Wednesday, April 26th, 2017

Information Technology has developed a new SUNLearn mobile app which is now available for download. The app can be downloaded for Android, as well as iOS devices. It can also be downloaded by scanning the QR code to the right.  

SUNLearn is Stellenbosch University’s blended-learning platform. It is an open source, powerful, flexible and mobile-ready blended learning platform for learning and teaching. The system is easy to learn and use for both staff and students and an extensive user guide is also available. 

The SUNLearn mobile app can be used to:

– browse the content of your courses, even when offline,
– receive instant notifications of messages and other events,
– quickly find and contact other people in your courses,
– upload images, audio, videos and other files from your mobile device,
– view your course grades, etc.

Full features can be seen here.

Students who are new to the system can go to the Student training link where they will find various resources, videos and self-help guides. Keep in mind that when you use the SUNLearn mobile app on campus via Maties WiFi or the network, you will not be charged for any data and you will not need Inetkey for access.

The SUNLearn support team can be reached at learn@sun.ac.za or 021-808 2222.

 

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