On 4/11/19 ITS will release an upgrade to the McAfee Agent on Denison-owned computers. This upgrade is “silent” and will not impact your ability to use your computer while it is happening. At some point during the upgrade process, you might notice a Windows notification regarding your antivirus protection being off. It should resolve itself after a short period of time once the new software version is installed and running. If the Windows notification stays there permanently, please contact the ITS Help Desk at helpdesk@denison.edu or 740-587-6395.
Google Hangouts Chat – The Messaging Platform for Teams
Google Hangouts Chat (chat.google.com), part of our G Suite for Education environment, allows you to send direct messages or participate in group conversations, helping team members collaborate easily and efficiently. You can also create dedicated “rooms” for ongoing projects or other group work. Hangouts Chat is integrated with G Suite, making it easy to upload and collaborate on documents in Google Drive, or to participate in audio/video conferences with Hangouts Meet. Hangouts Chat and Meet can both be accessed by clicking on the Google bar (the “waffle” icon in the upper right-hand side of your Gmail session in a browser).
Learning Center Resources
- Go here to learn more about using Hangouts Chat and to see how the interface differs from classic Hangouts in Gmail*
- Go here to learn more about using Hangouts Meet
Important Note About Group Conversations and “Hangouts” Product Naming
Hangouts Chat and Meet, together, are the next version of what is now known as “classic Hangouts”, the version of Hangouts that lives in your Gmail. Group conversations conducted in classic Hangouts can’t be viewed in Hangouts Chat, and vice versa. Google will begin a retirement phase of classic Hangouts in October of this year. Because of that, we recommend using only Hangouts Chat for group messages, and not classic Hangouts.
For more information about interoperability, please see this article.
For additional help and questions, please contact the ITS Help Desk.
Test Your Email IQ!
Update 4/1/19:
With the continuing receipt of ever more creative scam (phishing) emails, now is a good time to test your ability to detect fraudulent emails with Google’s free phishing quiz if you haven’t done so already.
Google Phishing Quiz: https://phishingquiz.withgoogle.com
IMPORTANT: The “withgoogle” part of the URL may make you question if the above link should be trusted. ITS has validated that “withgoogle.com” is a valid Google domain and this is a valid quiz. If you have questions about the validity of a URL, please don’t click it!
Original Post 1/23/19:
Check out this free quiz from Google to test your ability to detect fraudulent emails.
https://phishingquiz.withgoogle.com/
RESOLVED – Issues Calling from Dialpad to Denison Phone Numbers Ported to CBTS Today
*Update 5:00 PM 3/20/19 – This issue has been resolved. Calls from those using Dialpad now correctly reach individuals using CBTS phones.
ITS has received and confirmed a report of calls made from Dialpad to numbers ported to CBTS today ringing through the Dialpad app instead of the CBTS phone system. ITS is working with Dialpad to address and correct the problem. In the meantime, if you are using Dialpad and need to contact someone in the following offices:
Advancement, Annual Fund, Controller’s Office, Finance & Management, First Year Programs, Gift Planning, Major Gifts, Office of the President, and a few other individuals in ITS and Institutional Advancement
Please either use your mobile phone or call and leave a voicemail message requesting a callback. The person should receive an email notification with your voicemail and can then call you back.
If you have any questions, please contact the ITS Help Desk at 740-587-6395 or helpdesk.denison.edu.
BEWARE: Targeted Email Impersonation Scam Campaign Continues with Fake Denison Faculty/Staff Emails
Update 3/19/19:
The impersonation scam attempts are continuing. Please be very wary of any emails that start out with a casual question like “Are you available now” and look closely at the “From:” email address. We are continuing to see reports of scam emails sent from “BigRedID.denison.edu@gmail.com” addresses, but have also seen fake emails from other services like “BigRedID@outlook.com” and other unpredictable patterns. Please see the note below for more information on this scam and how to detect and handle scam emails.
Original Post:
On Wednesday 2/20/19, ITS received reports of scam emails purporting to be from two different department chairs but coming from email addresses that were “BigRedID.denison.edu@gmail.
The scam starts off with a very informal question like “Are you at the office” and, once a response is received, proceeds to request purchase of gift cards and then sharing of the gift card numbers (and therefore the associated money).
ADVICE: When you receive an email, look closely at the FROM address. Does it come from a “denison.edu” address? If “gmail.com” or anything other than “denison.edu” is after the “@” sign, be very suspicious of the email.
If you see the pattern of “BigRedID.denison.edu@gmail.
- Send the message to the ITS Help Desk so that emails to and from the scam email address can be blocked:
Select the 3 vertical dots next to the Reply button and choose “Show Original” and then click the “Copy to Clipboard” button. Compose a new message to “helpdesk@denison.edu” and paste the contents into the message body and send the message. - Report the email as phishing to Google to aid in future detection of scam emails:
In the original email, select the 3 vertical dots next to the Reply button and choose “Report Phishing”.
If you have questions/concerns, please contact the ITS Help Desk at 740-587-6395 or helpdesk@denison.edu
Completed: Planned Login Maintenance, Tue 3/26/19 5:00-7:00am
Between 5:00 and 7:00 AM on Thur 3/26/19, ITS will perform routine maintenance on the Login infrastructure. During this maintenance period, there will be a brief 1-2 minute window when users will not be able to login to BigRedID based services such as Denison Apps, MyDenison, NoteBowl and other services.
If you experience login issues with BigRedID based services after this time, please contact the ITS Help Desk at 740-587-639
COMPLETED: Planned interruptions for network drive access and printing on Tue. 03/19/19 between 4:00am and 7:30am
File and print server updates are complete. Please report any issues to the ITS Help Desk at 740-587-6395 or helpdesk@denison.edu (see www.denison.edu/its/helpdesk for hours).
Original post:
ITS is planning to install latest updates on servers hosting shared network drives (PERSONAL, SHARED, MEDIA, SCRATCH, etc) on Tuesday 03/19/19 between 4:00am and 7:30am. As these updates are being applied, there will be short outages for the above network drives while servers are updated and rebooted to complete installation. Please do not update files stored on the network file servers during these time periods.
“Denison Guest” will be removed from student housing buildings on 3/21/19
On Thursday March 21st ITS will be removing the “Denison Guest“ wireless network from all student housing buildings. Please check your devices and move to either “eduroam” or “Denison-Play” if you are currently using this network. If you do not proactively move your devices to one of the aforementioned networks the device will lose network connection after March 21st. Please contact the ITS Helpdesk if you need help connecting to “eduroam” or “Denison-Play”. For more information about the Denison wireless network offerings please visit the following URL – https://my.denison.edu/
*This network is not to be confused with “Denison–Guest“ which is a completely different wireless network that is used for visiting guests of Denison.
Planned Maintenance: Windows Security Updates, Week of 3/18/19
Beginning on March 18th, ITS will resume sending out Windows software updates and security patches which include software patches designed to plug security holes and keep your computer safe from intrusion. Updates had been paused while we improved the capabilities of the update server. All University-owned computers that are managed by ITS running Windows 7 and newer will be receiving these updates.
These updates will download automatically while on Denison’s network, without interrupting your work. However, a computer restart may be required to complete some of the installations. As a result, Windows computers will experience a longer-than-normal startup time on the next reboot subsequent to receiving these updates. (Note: campus labs and e-classrooms are configured to automatically reboot every night at 4am, so as to minimize this disruption)
These scheduled updates are only for security fixes, they do not include feature updates or other changes to usability.
Please contact the ITS Help Desk at helpdesk@denison.edu or (740)-587-6395 if you have any questions or concerns.
Completed: Banner Unavailable on 3/16/19 from 5:00AM-12:00PM for Maintenance
Update 3/16/2019 12:00pm:
Maintenance was successful. Banner services are available.
Original Post:
ITS will be performing Banner (INB) and Self-Service Banner (SSB) maintenance and upgrades, this Saturday, 3/16 – 5:00 AM to 12:00 PM.
Banner, Self Service and all related systems such as Xtender, Axiom, Xtender, Jaggaer (formerly SciQuest) e-procurement, Cognos, and portions of MyDenison that rely on Banner data will be unavailable during this maintenance window.
When the maintenance work is completed, this post will be updated with additional information.