Danielle Gauntz, Web Desinger, had her baby daughter on July 3, 2015. She will be back, providing full time web support on September 8, 2015. Her tentative plans include working 10 hours per week, starting July 20,
Shandelle Pepper is the technician providing Word Press support through December. Don’t hesitate to give her a call. She is glad to meet with you one-on-one or as a group. Her contact information is:
WordPress resources can be found here.
Windows XP support has ended, as of April 8, 2014. Microsoft suggest that you are five times more vulnerable to security risks and viruses, which means you could get hacked and have your personal information stolen, if you continue to run Windows XP.
By default, Windows XP computers will be blocked from operating on the WOU network, after July 1, 2015. If you have a critical need that requires Windows XP, please send me a note and I will design an alternative operating path for you.
If you don’t know which operating system you are using, contact the Service Request Desk at 88925 and they will help you identify the OS.
The core WOU network router pair failed to pass traffic beginning at 9:30am on January 14, 2015. Partial network throughput was restored at 12:40pm and a full recovery occured at 9:00pm January 14, 2015.
The University of Washington has posted the following information on their web site: (http://www.washington.edu/itconnect/connect/email/)
- Privacy: The UW email systems are provided to support UW activities and are subject to state laws and UW policy.
- Do not send sensitive information by email. This includes personnel data, patient records, student information, and financial information.
- Email messages can be kept and forwarded. Never assume email is private, even when using encryption technologies. The message you send to one person can easily spread to many more.
What e-mail security infrastructure is in place at WOU?
Is WOU e-mail filtered?
Do you have trouble finding your e-mails on occasion?
Moodle development continues in an effort to provide 99.999% up-time and good page load-times. Current up-time is 99.967%. Page load times are good, except during large “Course Development” events.
Recent changes:
Current design:
Next iteration:
Moodle access will include the following changes, as represented by the graphic below.
CryptoWall infected a staff members computer recently. All the files on his C: and H: drive have been encrypted and he no longer has access to them. Fortunately the files on his H: drive are backed up in several locations, so those are recoverable. The files on the C: drive have been lost.
The information below the horizontal line came from the Sophos web-site, the WOU anti-virus software company.
Below the double horizontal lines, you will find recommendations from Sophos on how to prevent being infected with this type of malware.
CryptoWall and CryptoDefense
New variants of file-encrypting ransomware called CryptoWall and CryptoDefense have been popping up since at least April 2014.
SophosLabs threat researcher Anand Ajjan says CryptoWall has the same code as CryptoDefense, and only differs in the name.
If you see a message like the one below, you’re in trouble – many, if not most, of the data files on your hard drive or any connected drives will be scrambled, and it’s simply not practicable to crack the encryption used by the crooks.
(You don’t have to pay, of course. Despite losing data, police in the New Hampshire town of Durham showed a bit of public resistance to the crooks, announcing that they were “definitely not paying any ransom.”)
The message gives instructions on how to use the Tor anonymizing proxy to access a website where you can pay to unlock your files:
If you do go to the payment website, you come to a screen that shows a clock counting down the time you have left to pay the ransom.
Leave it too long and the price to decrypt your files doubles:
In broken but intelligible English, the website tells you:
We are present a special software - CryptoWall Decrypter - which is allow to decrypt and return control to all your encrypted files.
This website (blocked by Sophos) includes links to payment options, and offers you the chance to “Decrypt 1 file for FREE”:
Unlike the crooks SophosLabs found who are trying to copy CryptoLocker but without actually encrypting your files, CryptoWall’s encryption can’t be reversed without the key.
That means if your files get locked, you either have to pay up, or “do a Durham,” and kiss your files goodbye.
According to SophosLabs, a common way of spreading CryptoWall infections is through exploit kits called RIG (also known as “Goon”) and Angler.
Exploit kits are web pages containing pre-packaged exploits that can be used to deliver malware of your choice to unsuspecting victims.
Often, one group of cybercrooks will simply “rent” exploit kit services from other cybercrooks on a pay-per-install basis.
So, whereas some ransomware attacks use social engineering in spam to trick you into downloading the malware, CryptoWall can get onto your computer just by visiting a website that is rigged up with an exploit kit.
IT admin:
Regular user:
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Move your mouse point over the shield and ensure ‘On-access scanning: disabled’ is not shown.
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Double-click the Sophos shield to open the program. On the left hand side, under the ‘Status’ panel make sure the ‘Last updated’ value is recent…
