Tech Alerts

On Tuesday, May 21st, between 8AM and 8PM EDT, and on Thursday May 23^rd, between 8 AM and 1 PM EDT the next day, FDU will be performing a major firmware upgrade on our network authentication services.

During these maintenance windows, there is a possibility that users may experience brief authentication delays when connecting to the wireless network or the FDU VPN.

We are writing to inform you of a new program update for Microsoft 365 Desktop Client (formerly Microsoft Office 365) that will improve the performance and security of your applications. This upgrade, expected to take approximately 30 minutes, will be automatically deployed to your computer starting on April 9, 2024, at 8:00 a.m. If you are working remotely, ensure you are connected to the University’s VPN (Virtual Private Network) to receive this upgrade. To ensure a smooth installation, you will need to close all Office 365 applications before the update begins and save and close any files that you are working on. Once your system receives the upgrade package, you will receive a notification to close your application before the update begins as shown below:

You will then receive a notification when the Microsoft 365 upgrade has been completed and is ready to use.

During the upgrade, you can still access your email, write, and view Office documents online by visiting https://office365.fdu.edu. Documents stored on your department’s shared network drive will remain accessible for editing. If you open any Office application during the upgrade, you will receive the following:

To verify your upgrade version, open any Microsoft Word document, click on File, then click on Account. You should see Upgrade Version 2401 Build 16.0.17231.20290.

If you have not received the upgrade, encounter any issues, or have additional comments by April 19, 2024, please open a SAMI support ticket. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.

OIRT constantly monitors our network for new phishing attempts and implements rules to prevent these messages from reaching our email system. We catch and delete over 90% of phishing emails before they reach our community. However, achieving a 100% catch rate without blocking some legitimate emails is impossible. Therefore, it’s crucial for our community to verify the legitimacy of every email before responding.

The threat of phishing attacks is always high. Bad actors frequently request personal email addresses or mobile numbers for texting, aiming to divert victims from our secure environment. FDU will never request your personal email address or ask for responses via personal email.

Always verify the source of emails before responding. Messages pretending to come from our community but originating from external email domains can be identified by the [External] tag in the subject line.

For additional tips on recognizing phishing emails and steps to report them, please review the articles below:

Multi-Factor Fatigue

Do NOT accept a Cisco Duo multi-factor authentication challenge unless you are actively trying to log into one of our systems. Receiving a Duo challenge without attempting to access an FDU system likely means your password has been compromised. Scammers often try logging into an account repeatedly, hoping a community member will accept the Duo challenge to cease the persistent requests. Instead of granting the scammer access to your account, change your password immediately and report the potential compromise to the University Technical Assistance Center at (973)-443-8822.

WISP Compliance

Our online WISP Training is mandatory and required every two years. Regularly, auto-generated emails are sent to those not in compliance. Employees who are non-compliant will face denial of new service requests through the SAMI Support Portal, and access to all systems and services may be restricted following multiple unanswered non-compliance communications.

On the evenings of March 14th and 15th, during the NJ campus Spring Break closure, USAN will conduct maintenance on our campus network infrastructure. While we do not expect this work to impact users, it is possible that on-campus users may experience a momentary interruption of internet connectivity as we service their area.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. If you have any questions or concerns, please visit SAMI Support, where you can request additional information from UTAC or search our extensive IT knowledge base. While SAMI Support provides the quickest and easiest access to IT support, you can always contact UTAC by phone at (973)-443-8822 or by email at fdutac@fdu.edu.

Microsoft’s new meeting scheduler for Outlook is now available on FDU-owned computers.  The new feature, called Microsoft Scheduling Poll, replaces their legacy solution, Microsoft FindTime. While the interface has improved, the functionality will be familiar to FindTime users. Microsoft Scheduling Poll allows members of our community to offer a poll to their meeting attendees. Attendees can vote to reach a consensus on a preferred meeting time. 

More information on this helpful tool can be found below:

If you have any questions or concerns, please visit SAMI Support, where you can request additional information from UTAC or search our extensive IT knowledge base. While SAMI Support provides the quickest and easiest access to IT support, you can always contact UTAC by phone at (973)-443-8822 or email at fdutac@fdu.edu.

As part of our ongoing effort to improve security and functionality, OIRT is pleased to announce Jamf Connect as our authentication tool for FDU Mac computers. Our Jamf Connect deployment will begin on Tuesday, March 5^th. Once it is installed, you will notice a new FDU login screen as shown below. Please note you will continue to use the existing login screen if FileVault 2 is enabled on your machine.

Additionally, there will be an improved menu bar that will allow you to change and sync your password from any location with internet connectivity.

If you receive the following prompt, please enter your NetID and password to sign into Jamf Connect.

Please take a moment to visit our tutorial and familiarize yourself with Jamf connect:

You can also access this documentation by clicking on the Help buttons on the login screen as well as the Get Help button from the new Jamf menu bar on your machine.

If you have any questions or concerns, please visit SAMI Support, where you can request additional information from UTAC or search our extensive IT knowledge base. While SAMI Support provides the quickest and easiest access to IT support, you can always contact UTAC by phone at (973)-443-8822 or email at fdutac@fdu.edu.

At 2 PM EST, our voicemail service provider, NWN, will perform maintenance on our voicemail system. While we do not anticipate user impact, there is a possibility that users may experience outages. We expect the maintenance to be completed by 2:30 PM EST.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. If you have any questions or concerns, please visit SAMI Support, where you can request additional information from UTAC or search our extensive IT knowledge base. While SAMI Support provides the quickest and easiest access to IT support, you can always contact UTAC by phone at (973)-443-8822 or by email at fdutac@fdu.edu.

On Friday, February 16th, between 5 PM and midnight EST, our phone vendor, NWN, will be performing an emergency software security patch of FDU’s Jabber soft phone service. We expect that we will experience a two-hour service disruption at some point during the maintenance window.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. If you have any questions or concerns, please visit SAMI Support, where you can request additional information from UTAC or search our extensive IT knowledge base. While SAMI Support provides the quickest and easiest access to IT support, you can always contact UTAC by phone at (973)-443-8822 or by email at fdutac@fdu.edu.

On Monday, an FDU Tech Alert was sent out notifying all users of an outage with our Jabber soft phones. This outage was the result of a cyber attack at our vendor, NWN’s, facility, impacting all their customers, including FDU. Since that time, many of you have opened SAMI support tickets, and we have been communicating updates directly to you through that system.

Throughout the last several days, we have been in constant communication with our vendor, NWN. There have been moments of extreme optimism that the system would be coming up imminently, followed by setbacks that, in some cases, have impacted a greater area of our overall functionality.

At this time, not only have we lost our soft phone functionality, but we have also lost the use of our VoIP door buzzers. Our users can no longer utilize the NWN self-service portal to call forward, and our internal voice services team can no longer make any changes to the system, such as moves, additions, or deletions.

We understand the frustration of our end users, as we are equally frustrated by our inability to assist or provide reasonable workarounds. We understand how impactful this is to some and are constantly pushing our vendor to do everything within their means to get us up and functioning.

Several NWN engineers are working on our specific case. We continue to monitor the situation, in the hopes that NWN will be successful in bringing us back online as swiftly as possible.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. If you have any questions or concerns, please visit SAMI Support, where you can request additional information from UTAC or search our extensive IT knowledge base. While SAMI Support provides the quickest and easiest access to IT support, you can always contact UTAC by phone at (973)-443-8822 or by email at fdutac@fdu.edu.

Cybercriminals have recently been abusing TeamViewer with ransomware attacks. While FDU does not have confirmation of breaches within our network, we are taking steps to protect our TeamViewer accounts. At this time, we ask that all FDU TeamViewer users enable multifactor authentication using the Duo Mobile App. On February 15th, 2024, all FDU TeamViewer accounts without multi-factor authentication will be placed on hold until multi-factor authentication is enabled.

For easy setup and configuration, please follow the instructions linked below:

TeamViewer | Activate Two-Factor Authentication

Thank you for your attention to this matter. If you have any questions or concerns, please visit SAMI Support, where you can request additional information from UTAC or search our extensive IT knowledge base. While SAMI Support provides the quickest and easiest access to IT support, you can always contact UTAC by phone at (973)-443-8822 or by email at fdutac@fdu.edu.