A recently disclosed vulnerability in the R programming language could provide attackers with a foothold to execute arbitrary commands on a system running an unpatched version of R. R is a language widely used at UVM by researchers for a variety of tasks, including statistical analysis and data visualization. This vulnerability has not yet been …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Critical Outlook Vulnerability – Patch ASAP!
On March 14th, Microsoft disclosed a critical security vulnerability that affects Outlook email clients running on Windows. Microsoft has released an update to address this vulnerability as part of this month’s regular updates. ETS has made this update mandatory starting today, so Windows machines that normally receive updates from ETS will receive it right away. …
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Expansion of Duo Protections
Dear UVM Community, As we noted last month, a significant expansion of Duo multifactor authentication will begin on March 13, and will continue over the next few months in multiple phases. We are making this change because the protection of intellectual property as well as personally identifiable information including student records, personnel information, and research …
Everything Old Is New, Again
UVM technology leaders and staff are monitoring the news around emerging global cybersecurity threats as a result of recent sanctions against Russia. We continuously engage with partners across Higher Education and in law enforcement to improve UVM’s defensive posture. As always, though, we need your help, and “the usual advice” is now more important than …
When the Attacks Aren’t Just Cyberattacks
5 min. read ISO intern Josh Baker contributed the “protecting others by protecting ourselves” theme to this article. Others have eloquently addressed the injustice that is the ongoing Russian aggression against the people and the state of Ukraine; suffice it to say that no one deserves to be subject to physical violence, and we dearly …
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BOLO: COVID-themed Attacks
As COVID-19 continues to dominate the news cycle and daily life, the UVM Information Security Office would like the community to Be On the Look-Out (BOLO) for cyber criminals using COVID-19 as a theme for phishing emails, scams, and other attacks on the security of your information and that of the University. These attacks could …
Windows 7 Advisory
This post is part of a series contributed by the ISO’s 2019-2020 student intern Emily Connolly, ’20. On January 14th, 2020, Microsoft support for Windows 7 will end, which means that version of Windows will no longer receive patches to fix bugs or security flaws. Why is this happening? End of life is the term …
“DUO” the Necessary Steps to Protect Yourself!
Enabling Multifactor Authentication This post is part of a series contributed by the ISO’s 2019-2020 student intern Emily Connolly, ’20. What is multifactor authentication? How do I use the DUO app? How do I lock down my passwords? If these questions keep you up at night, read on. If not, read on anyway; it’s important …
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Go Phish!
Defeating phishing emails and securing your inbox This post is part of a series contributed by the ISO’s 2019-2020 student intern Emily Connolly, ’20. It’s 8am on a Monday morning. You pour yourself a cup of coffee and open your laptop to read all the emails you’ve been putting off since Friday afternoon. When you …
Protecting Your NetID Password
You’ve probably heard by now that UVM has been subject to a computer system intrusion that has the potential to result in the malicious use of UVM NetIDs and passwords. Here’s the crux of the announcement: The University has no indication that personally identifiable information has been accessed or compromised. Nonetheless, the University is taking …