June 20, 2011

Please come in!

As renovations to the ERC in Columbus Hall near completion, the exterior entrances and landscaping are coming together. Students can now walk right into the ERC and new Writing Center using the front door! The interior and exterior projects will be complete at the start of Autumn Quarter.

Coming this week to a copier near you: Copier Codes

Copiers at all Columbus State locations will be programmed this week for copier codes. The specific date for programming is posted above each copier, and programming will take only a few minutes for each machine. Once a copier is programmed, you will be prompted to log in with your department or grant code prior to making copies. If you are not sure of your code, ask your office associate or call 5050.

His name’s not Monty

But this albino python certainly captured the attention of campers from the Kids in College day camp on June 13. The Columbus Zoo came for a visit, bringing lots of interesting animals including snakes, sloths, wallabies, a cheetah and penguins! The children are on campus for two weeks during summer break and are ages 8-11. Field trips, special guest speakers, games and projects take up the whole day for the kids. The program is coordinated by the K-12 Initiatives department.

SAC hosts statewide conference on campus
State Employee Retirement System (SERS) representative Erin Knight discusses changes in the system with members of Staff Advisory Council, including Tim Wagner, left, Mandy Gollhofer, center, and Summre Jones, right.  Columbus State hosted the annual summer Ohio Staff Council of Higher Education (OSHCE) conference June 16 and 17 on campus.

Information Security Tip: The Growing Threat of Spear Phishing

Over the past several months, you may have heard about the successful hacking attempts at RSA, Sony, and Citigroup. You can now add the IMF (International Monetary Fund) to the list of high profile attacks.  While there are suspicions as to why this is happening, the leading thought is "spear phishing."  Spear phishing is defined as "an e-mail spoofing fraud attempt that targets a specific organization, seeking unauthorized access to confidential data." 

Please visit http://www.cscc.edu/infosec/index.shtml and review the two Fraud Warning messages (in bold red letters) dated April 4 and April 8, 2011.  You'll see (due to another hacking incident involving Epsilon) many companies you regularly do business with were recently compromised.  Spear phishing will come in the form of a legitimate looking email from a reputable company.  However, the email may ask you to install something or ask you to provide personally identifiable information (Social Security number, account user name and password, etc.).  If you install something contained in the email, it is likely capturing information on your computer and sending (without you knowing) it to a source accessible by the attacker.  If the email asks you to provide information and you do, you may have just provided the attacker with the credentials to access your bank accounts (for example). 

Spear phishing is one of the fastest growing security threats.  You must be aware and suspicious of what arrives in your email.  Here are some things to remember when reviewing emails (at home and at work):

• If an email looks too good to be true, it probably is ("You've won the lottery!" for example).

• If an email asks you for your user name and password, don't provide it.  No reputable company will ask for this information in an email.  This includes Columbus State.

• Be suspicious of links in the email.  It may look legit, but it may take you to a malicious website that looks like the real website.  Once there, you'll enter information and the criminals behind the malicious website will have what they need to access your account at the real website.  If in doubt, open your web browser of choice and manually type the company's website into the address bar.

With the high volumes of spam in circulation, some of which are malicious emails, it can be difficult to identify the legitimate emails.  Here's the best advice for dealing with emails: If in doubt, delete it.  Call the company and ask if they sent the email—chances are they didn't.

In these times of escalating computer fraud, you must remain aware of everything you do online.  

If you have any questions, please call Rob Clifford (Information Security) at ext. 3686.