OIT News – October 2016

OIT News

Monthly news briefs, information and announcements
Office of Information Technology, NC State University
Issue 108, October 2016

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Follow OIT on Twitter @NCStateOIT
For up-to-the-minute reports on OIT systems, see SysNews
For help with computing problems, contact the NC State Help Desk

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01: Meet the FBI Cybersquad on Oct. 25
02: Register now for NC State’s 5 Years of Google celebration on Nov. 30!
03: Central IT extended maintenance scheduled for Nov. 5-6
04: Introducing G Suite!
05: Explore in G Suite
06: OIT to decommission WRAP on Dec. 31
07: Register for an OIT workshop this fall!
08: SAR training scheduled for Oct. 26
09: Keep your devices secure while traveling

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01: Meet the FBI Cybersquad on Oct. 25
NC State’s Cyber Security Awareness Month event, Protect the Pack: Don’t Get Phished, will highlight the FBI Cybersquad on Tuesday, Oct. 25 from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Talley Student Union’s Stewart Theatre.

Meet special agents John Maser and Scott Bennett who will give an engaging presentation on the current cyber threats and trends that are seen nationally as well as those that target higher education. They will also:

  • provide a general overview of the FBI and its cyber resources.
  • examine personal computer safety and provide recommendations to protect yourself online.
  • provide an overview of FBI cyber careers and internship opportunities.
  • conclude with an opportunity to meet one-on-one with participants.

To register, visit Classmate.

Other cyber security presentations that will be held this month include:

  • Secure Your iOS Devices (iPhone and iPad) on Oct 19
    At their core, Apple devices are designed with good security, but you must enable measures to protect your data. Learn more on Wednesday, Oct. 19 at noon in Room 126 (Washington Sankofa) of Witherspoon Student Center. To register, visit Classmate.
  • Phishing 101 and Google 2-Step on Oct. 20
    Do you know what phishing is or what a phishing scam looks like? Learn tips to identify both and how to protect yourself using Google 2-Step Verification on Thursday, Oct. 20 at noon in Room 110 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. Seating is limited. To register, visit Classmate.
  • Tool Talk I: Identity Finder and CloudLock on Oct. 27
    Protecting your data on campus is a very sensitive topic — one that needs further discussion. Campus system administrators are invited to learn more about the scanning tools in the Sensitive Information Identification and Response (SIIR) project, as well as the methods OIT Security and Compliance employs to remediate the findings on Thursday, Oct. 27 at noon in Room 106 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. To register, visit Classmate.
  • Tool Talk II: Protect Your Services With Duo 2-Factor Authentication on Oct. 31
    Multi-factor authentication is becoming more commonplace as well as a requirement for many university systems. Campus IT staff are invited to learn how multi-factor authentication plays a role in the administration of various campus services and to discuss preferred strategies to integrate Duo into their campus systems on Monday, Oct. 31 at noon in Room 106 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. To register, visit Classmate.

Attendees will have the opportunity to win great door prizes, including an Amazon Echo, a P2 Jr Pico Projector, Blue Nano bluetooth speakers, Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, a one-day IT training course, gift cards, tablets, and more!

This event is sponsored by the Office of Information Technology, the Department of Computer Science, ePartners Program, and the NC State Engineering Foundation.

For more information about NC State’s Cyber Security Awareness Month activities, see Protect the Pack: Don’t Get Phished.

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02: Register now for NC State’s 5 Years of Google celebration on Nov. 30!
NC State will celebrate 5 Years of Google on Wednesday, Nov. 30 — exactly five years from “Google Day,” when all campus users officially moved to Google Apps @ NC State!

And, what a day it’s going to be!

Register to attend this half-day event from 12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the Talley Student Union Piedmont-Mountains Ballroom. Join us for this exciting opportunity to learn how the campus community is using the many cool tools in G Suite (formerly Google Apps) to communicate, collaborate and work more efficiently.

Don’t miss special guest Jonathan Rochelle, director of Google Product Management and co-founder of Google Docs and Google Drive, as well as other apps in that suite, including Google Sheets, Slides, Forms, Apps Script, and Google Fonts. Rochelle is primarily responsible for Google Apps for Education, which reaches more than 40 million educators and students, and most recently launched Google Classroom and Google Expeditions. In the keynote address, which is open to the public, Rochelle will provide:

  • an overview of five years of Google’s use on NC State campus
  • ways campus users can leverage Google resources securely
  • a sneak preview of Google’s latest developments for the education environment

The “5 Years of Google” Celebration will also feature breakout sessions with presentations from NC State students, faculty and staff that will demonstrate how to maximize Google tools. They include:

Breakout Session I – 1 p.m. to 1:45 p.m., Third Floor, Talley Student Union

  • Working Remotely with Google Tools
  • Google for Teaching & Research
  • Off the Beaten Google Path – Maximizing Google Tools

Breakout Session II – 2 p.m. to 2:45 p.m., Third Floor, Talley Student Union

  • Google Best Practices
  • Google Security
  • Taking G Suite (formerly Google Apps) to the Next Level

To register, visit the 5 Years of Google at NC State website. Space is limited!

The campus community is also invited to participate in a Video Demo Slam contest. Enter to win the $150 Grand Prize by simply creating an engaging video to show how you use Google Apps in 90 seconds or less! Collaborate with up to two of your colleagues or classmates and enter by 11:59 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 11. For complete contest rules, visit the 5 Years of Google at NC State website.

Got Google questions? You can get all of them answered by our Google experts at several Information Booths during the celebration. Light refreshments will be served and attendees will have opportunities to win big prizes throughout the afternoon. For more information, visit the 5 Years of Google at NC State website.

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03: Central IT extended maintenance scheduled for Nov. 5-6
On Saturday, Nov. 5 through Sunday, Nov. 6, OIT will perform extensive system maintenance, such as data center improvements that require the shutdown and movement of equipment, hardware replacement and infrastructure configuration. This extended maintenance window will run from 6 a.m. Saturday to 6 p.m. Sunday.

Services expected to be offline for the majority of the maintenance window include, but are not limited to:

  • MyPack Portal
  • Human Resources, Financial and Student systems
  • OIT backup services
  • Virtual Computing Lab (VCL) services
  • WolfPrint services
  • Authenticated SMTP to smtp.ncsu.edu
  • Conferences.ncsu.edu

No new accounts will be created on Saturday, Nov. 5.

Services that may experience intermittent periods of unavailability or slow performance during the maintenance window include, but are not limited to:

  • Shibboleth (Sites using Shibboleth for authentication will be impacted.)
  • www.ncsu.edu (NC State’s home page)
  • High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster, including access to storage from HPC nodes
  • SysNews
  • AFS hosted sites
  • cPanel, Hosted WordPress and WordPress blogs
  • LDAP (Updates will be available after the maintenance is completed.)
  • Kerberos
  • OIT hosted systems
  • Networked Attached Storage (NAS) shares and exports

For scheduled system changes and updates, see the Change Management Calendar or visit SysNews. If you have any questions, contact the NC State Help Desk at help@ncsu.edu or 919.515.4357 (HELP).

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04: Introducing G Suite!
On Sept. 29, Google rebranded Google Apps for Education to G Suite for Education. G Suite retains the same service as Google Apps, particularly in regards to both Core and Consumer applications.

With the rebrand, Google continues its movement to simplify routine tasks and to provide applications and tools that allow information to flow freely between devices. In addition, Google plans to continue to provide technologies and innovations that encourage teamwork, collaboration and communication.

Tied to this concept, Google will soon launch Team Drive, which will allow the management, organization and sharing of information to be done more easily at a team folder rather than an individual level. On behalf of the university, OIT has expressed an interest in participating in Google’s Early Adopter Program (EAP) and will inform the campus community if the university is accepted into the program. For additional information on these and other changes, see the Google Cloud Official Blog.

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05: Explore in G Suite
Google recently launched Explore in G Suite (formerly Google Apps) to bring you more design and research suggestions so you can to take your projects to the next level. Explore will replace Research in Google Docs and Slides and also will enhance features in Google Sheets.  

You can use the Explore tool in G Suite to:

  • conduct a Google search in Docs and view or insert related topics and images based on your content.
  • provide Slides layout recommendations and apply design elements with one click.  
  • ask questions about your project in Sheets and provide formatting suggestions for data, charts and graphs.

To learn more about these enhancements and other new Google features, check out the latest edition of What’s New In Google Apps.

For training tips, follow the NC State Google Services Team on Google+. To view upcoming workshops, visit Classmate.  

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06: OIT to decommission WRAP on Dec. 31
On Saturday, Dec. 31, OIT will decommission the WRAP authentication service. All NC State websites and services should move to Shibboleth for authentication ahead of this deadline.  

To prepare for the decommission, OIT has already disabled the download of WRAP authentication modules. In addition, OIT has been working with many of the larger users of WRAP and successfully migrated most sites to Shibboleth. If you have not migrated your site, please see Moving from WRAP to Shibboleth.

If you are a:

  • WordPress user, OIT recommends that you use the Engineering Multiauth tool to authenticate via Shibboleth and WP Local auth services.
  • user of www4.ncsu.edu who need to restrict access to your content, OIT encourages you to move your WRAP-protected content to an appropriate university, college or department web service. If you are unsure of the appropriate platform for your content, visit Get on the Web to investigate your options.

HELP

If your content is course-related or you need assistance with NC State’s learning technologies, such as Moodle, WolfWare, Mediasite, and Collaborate, please contact DELTA’s LearnTech Help Desk at learntech@ncsu.edu, LearnTech Request or 919.513.7094.

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07: Register for an OIT workshop this fall!
Upcoming workshops include:

  • Google Slides: Create, Collaborate, and Publish Presentations will be offered on Wednesday, Oct. 19 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. in Room 110 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. Learn how to create presentations using Google Slides. This session will focus on creating, editing, sharing and collaboration, themes, transitions, animations, and more! To register, visit Classmate.
  • Google Calendar: Advanced Productivity will be offered on Tuesday, Oct. 25 and Wednesday, Nov. 16 from 9 a.m. to noon in Room 110 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. If you’re comfortable with the basics of Google Calendar and are ready to use some more of its features, this hands-on workshop is for you. This workshop will focus on three main sections: calendar (my calendar, other calendars, mini calendar), event details and calendar management. Specific features will include event attachments, maps and directions, sharing and embedding calendars, labs, quick add, search options, mobile notifications, and scheduling Hangouts (video conferencing). To register, visit Classmate.
  • Managing PDF Accessibility will be offered on Tuesday, Nov. 1 from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Room 106 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. In this introductory course, you will learn about the benefits of using accessible PDFs and the resources and methods for delivering them. Laptops are optional, but feel free to bring your own device to this workshop. To register, visit Classmate.
  • Gmail: More than you Inbox will be offered on Wednesday, Nov. 2 from 9 a.m. to noon in Room 110 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. There is more to Gmail than just composing, replying to, and forwarding messages. This workshop will provide an in-depth overview of Gmail features, including an emphasis on labels and search tools, contacts management, chat, tasks, settings, labs, and new features. A reference, including many additional helpful resources, will also be provided. To register, visit Classmate.
  • Streamline Your Business Processes with Google Apps will be offered on Thursday, Nov. 3 from 10 a.m. to noon in Room 110 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. In this participant-led and highly-interactive class, you’ll learn how to save time scheduling meetings, creating agendas, sharing documents, collaborating, communicating, and much more! Bring your current workflows and learn how to harness the power of Google Apps to streamline your business processes. To register, visit Classmate.
  • Google Sheets will be offered on Thursday, Nov. 10 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Room 110 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. Google Sheets has recently been updated with even more powerful tools and functionality. Join us for this two-hour overview of Sheets and learn how it integrates with other apps in Google Drive. The workshop will also cover several features including formatting options, find & replace, notifications, conditional formatting, and more!  To register, visit Classmate.
  • Benefits of 2-Step Verification will be offered on Wednesday, Nov. 16 from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m in Room 110 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. Google 2-Step Verification can help prevent your account from being compromised. Register for this one-hour session to learn more about how this security feature can protect your account. There will be an overview of 2-Step, along with detailed instructions to enable this tool. Participants will have the option to set up their account with 2-Step Verification. Those interested should bring a mobile device to complete the setup process. To register, visit Classmate.
  • Create, Collaborate & Get Organized with Google Drive will be offered on Thursday, Nov. 17 from from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. in Room 110 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. Google Drive is the backbone of your Google experience, combining storage, access, sharing, and collaboration with the power of Google Apps. During this hands-on workshop, you will learn how to use Drive to manage your resources in a collaborative environment. Topics will include organizing files and folders, securing documents through file sharing permissions, group editing and collaboration, and common Google Apps tools. To register, visit Classmate.

For other available training sessions, visit Classmate Scheduled Workshops. If you are interested in custom software training, complete the Custom Training Form. Email all training questions to classreg@ncsu.edu.

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08: SAR training scheduled for Oct. 26
Security Access Request (SAR) training for campus requestors and approvers of access to secured university data will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 26 from 9:30 a.m. to noon in Room 110 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. To register, visit Classmate.

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09: Keep your devices secure while traveling
Whether you’re leaving for a semester abroad, taking a flight to a conference on the other side of the country, or simply traveling to a nearby city, it is important to ensure your laptop and other mobile devices remain secure.  

Below are resources and recommendations that will help keep data on both your personal and university-owned devices from being compromised.

Prior to Traveling:

  • Enable Google 2-Step Verification. This 2-factor authentication program helps protect your Gmail and Google Drive files from being accessed by intruders, even if your password gets hacked. Also, your successful logins using this secure method will help prevent account lockout, due to suspicious login attempts from an unfamiliar location. Be sure to add a secondary backup authentication method, such as printed backup codes, in case your phone cannot receive text codes while traveling.
  • Make any needed security patches and software updates. Hackers can exploit vulnerabilities in outdated programs to infect your devices; therefore, performing consistent and timely updates is an added barrier against intrusion.

While Traveling:

Connect to secured, password-protected networks. It is tempting, when traveling, to join any open wifi or Internet network you encounter, since you may not know when another network will be available. However, unsecured networks can allow hackers easy access to your communications and data. Try only to access known networks, such as cellular or other secured networks. If you must connect to an unsecured network, make the connection as brief as possible, do not transmit sensitive data (such as banking or credit card information), and log off the connection as soon as you are done.

If you suspect your account or device has been compromised while traveling, contact the NC State Help Desk at help@ncsu.edu or 919.515.4357 (HELP). The Help Desk is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. with the exception of university holidays.

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