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Check for updates here every Monday.

July 22

Scam Alert: Research Assistants for Padma Patil

Our information security team has received numerous reports of a scam concerning student research assistants for Padma Patil, associate vice president of institutional research. The scam is sent via an email that presses a need for student research assistants At Miami and it may ask to provide contact information. In several cases, the scammer has sent real, physical, fraudulent checks to the students and asks that they purchase computer equipment back to them. At that point, the checks then bounce, causing the students to lose their own money and the equipment. 

If you receive an email about research assistantships, or personal checks from any administrator at the university, do not respond, click any links within, or cash any checks! If you receive a personal check you were not expecting (especially from an unexpected source), you can also call the issuing bank to verify if the check is legitimate.

This is not how Miami solicits information from students, or advertises for jobs. That is done through Miami’s employment portal (MiamiOH.edu/jobs).

If you receive a message that you suspect to be a phishing message, please forward it to InfoSec@MiamiOH.edu. This allows the information security team to block sites that may be associated with phishing attacks. If you ever feel you may have responded to a fraudulent message or clicked a link in one, please contact IT Help immediately at 513-529-7900.

Ongoing CrowdStrike Issues

On Friday morning, a bug in an update from CrowdStrike cybersecurity software impacted Windows computers around the world, grounding flights and stalling work for many industries. Miami was similarly impacted.

IT teams have spent the weekend strategizing about the best way to support the Miami community in response to the CrowdStrike outage. We continue to support folks through the bluescreening issues and have mobilized a team of technicians who are available to help remediate the issues. Please contact your regular support personnel and they will work to get your device up and running as normal. For individuals in need of hands-on assistance on the Oxford campus, IT teams are ready to assist. There is also physical support available at the Technology Support Lounge, located in the Armstrong Student Center where Cafe Lux used to be.

For more information please visit the IT News communication archive for this outage.

Our CIO in the News!

Amidst all the crazy scams and news going on, our CIO, David Seidl continues to make IT a great place to work. On Friday, he was featured in a news piece on the University News and Events page! The article dived into his passion for locksport, the hobby of overcoming locking systems. David dives into how this hobby has allowed him to engage with students, forge new relationships, and strengthen his connection to his late grandfather, who was a locksmith. 

Check out the article and show him some support here!