October 2017

Web Browser Security Warnings

You may have received an error or warning in your web browser about a site you visit not being secure.  This can happen for many reasons.  Usually, the fault lies with the web server because the server administrator has not been keeping up with the latest security best practices or has made a mistake in implementing a security measure.  Nevertheless, in a surprising number of cases, the cause can be a non-server issue, such as your machine's clock being off by more than several minutes, or from your using a free public WiFi service that has a captive login portal.

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UDC Network Upgrades

The network in the University Data Center (UDC) will soon be upgraded to ensure continued stability and performance. The current data center network was purchased in 2010 and is near its end of vendor support. 

The new network has already been installed in parallel to the existing network and is undergoing testing. Migration of approximately 750 customer devices will take place starting in late October.  Migrations will be done  one rack pair at a time, in order to lower the risk for individual customers as the migrations take place.  The old

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Out-of-Band Flash Security Update

Vulnerable versions of Adobe Flash are being actively exploited. Please patch your copy of Flash as soon as possible.

Title: Adobe Flash Releases Out-of-Band Flash Player Security Update
Description: Adobe has released an out-of-band security update for Flash Player in response to CVE-2017-11292, a zero-day vulnerability under active exploitation. CVE-2017-11292 manifests as a type confusion vulnerability. Reports have indicated that this vulnerability is being leveraged by the Black Oasis APT group. Users are advised to update as soon as possible to reduce the

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Exploit of WiFi security protocol

Earlier today an announcement was made of a serious security vulnerability in a protocol that encrypts almost all WiFi traffic today. An attack against this vulnerability exposes all encrypted wireless traffic for an attacker to read, record, or possibly manipulate. The vulnerability exists on all unpatched platforms and wireless access points, although testing by the people who discovered this vulnerability shows that Android phones and Linux and BSD computers are the easiest for hackers to exploit.

To exploit this vulnerability, a hacker needs only to be within

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Biometric Authentication

The UT Information Security Office (ISO) has just released a draft of new guidelines1 for using Facial Recognition and other biometric methods for authentication. This was brought about mostly by Apple Face ID on new iPhones, but Microsoft Windows' facial recognition Hello software is similar and getting a lot of attention, as well.

The ISO has rated Apple Face ID and Windows Hello for Business as highly secure. In the lesser category of secure (as opposed to highly secure), they add eye/iris scanners, finger/thumb scanners (including Apple Touch ID), and other facial

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Undo your Mistakes!

Sometimes we make mistakes.  Fortunately, sometimes we can undo our mistakes.   Undo is a command or option in many computer or phone programs that undoes the last change made,  reverting the data or program to its state before the change was made.

The opposite of undo is redo. The redo command undoes the last undo. Both undo and redo are available in almost all computer software today.

Below are some ways to undo some of your technology mistakes.

General Undo Functionality

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Free PDF Editors

PDF has become one of the most common file types, one that’s popular among businesses attempting to go "green" or "paperless", as well as popular for sharing documents on web sites.  Part of their popularity is that they, in theory,  cost nothing to produce and assure that documents will appear the same to anyone, anytime; anywhere. PDFs can also be interactive or contain forms, if desired; and they can be partially or completely edited by peers. As more people switch to using PDFs, the desire or need to easily create and edit them also grows; thus, having access to the best

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