The University has been notified of a vulnerability in our current version of Cisco Jabber. Cisco has released a software update to address this vulnerability, which we will push to any user that currently has Jabber installed on their FDU machine. This process will begin at 9AM tomorrow and should be completed for all Jabber users between noon and 1PM. If you are not a Jabber user there will be no impact to you. The update will occur automatically and will remove the old version of Jabber before installing the new version. If you are on a call when your machine receives the update, your call will be disconnected. Otherwise, the update will be completed without any impact to the community, and should take less than 10 minutes.

Please check your Jabber software version by clicking on the settings (gear) icon at the top right of the Jabber screen. Then go to Help, followed by “About Cisco Jabber”. The correct version after the update will be 12.9.3.54813. If you do not see this version by the end of day tomorrow, please inform our University Technical Assistance Center (UTAC) at (973)-443-8822 or create a ticket using the support button in the top bar. 

Thank you for your attention to this very important matter.

On Saturday, December 19^th, between the hours of 6AM and 9AM Eastern, University Systems and Networking will be conducting a reboot of our network access control environment. During this window, users will experience intermittent disruptions while authenticating to the FDU wireless network from on campus and connecting remotely with the FDU VPN.

This work is being completed outside of regular business hours to minimize impact to our community. If you have any questions, please contact our University Technical Assistance Center at (973)-443-8822. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Beginning Wednesday, December 2^nd, Computing Services will be releasing an important update to the Malwarebytes Endpoint protection suite found on all University owned faculty and staff computers. Malwarebytes is an essential security application which stops thousands of security threats on our systems every day.

This update provides:

• Improved detection of new malware
• Faster scans using less resources
• Expanded detection of obfuscated malware
• Enhanced behavioral detection
• Improved quality and stability

The update will automatically be installed on all University owned computers. Once installed, you will receive a request in the lower left corner of your screen to reboot your machine, similar to the one below. The restart will occur automatically in three hours if you do not manually choose a restart time. To avoid the risk of losing any data, we advise you to save your work and allow this reboot immediately upon receiving the notification.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. As always, our University Technical Assistance Center is available at (973-443-8822 to answer any questions that you may have. 

Faculty and staff with FDU owned computers are about to experience a major enhancement of our cloud data backup solution with the launch of Code42. Code42 replaces our previous PC backup solution, Connected Backup, and it is the perfect mix of simplicity and customizability. Once Code42 is installed on our Windows or macOS machines, it will perform a daily backup of your user profile. The modern application allows our community to retrieve and restore files from a backup and perform backups to external storage devices. In the event that you have non-FDU related files, you can even place them into a “Personal Documents” folder to hide them from the backup. Code42 will run quietly in the background with no effort required on your part. You will not notice Code42 until you need it and when you do, you will be glad to have it.

Over the next week, Code42 will automatically be downloaded on FDU owned desktop and laptop computers running Windows or macOS. Our expectation is that all 

FDU computers will have the software installed by November 13th. For Windows users, activation will not require any action on your part. For macOS users, the download and installation will occur automatically, but you will prompted to enter your FDU NetID username to complete activation.  

Once Code42 is installed on your computer, feel free to uninstall our previous solution,Connected Backup, at any time. As we transition to Code42, Connected Backup will continue to perform all scheduled backups. Our expectation is that we will be ready to shut down the Connected Backup service on December 15^th. 

For more information about Code42,  please view our user guide:

Code42 User Guide

If you have any additional questions, please contact our University Technical Assistance Center at (973)-443-8822.

At the beginning of the Fall Semester, FDU IT launched FDU Anywhere for students with the promise that a more comprehensive Software Catalog would soon be available for the entire FDU Community. Today, we are happy to introduce that Catalog. 

The Software Catalog is a web based directory allowing our community to easily view all the software programs available to us. Simply select your “user type” of student, faculty, or staff and you will be presented with a list of software options that are either free, available for purchase at an educational discount, or accessible through FDU Anywhere.

The catalog provides a variety of helpful drop down menus to filter or sort your selections. For example, the “Availability” drop down menu allows you to filter your results to view software that is available via FDU Anywhere, view software that can be pushed to University owned computers, or view open source software can be downloaded to any computer.  Each software option provides a description of the software and instructions for how to access or download.

To get started visit the FDU Software catalog:

FDU Software Catalog

This catalog replaces the Open Source software list that we announced in a recent Tech Alert. Going forward, the Software Catalog will be the preferred method of viewing an up to date list of recommended open source software options.

As always, our University Technical Assistance Center is available at (973)-443-8822 to answer any questions that you may have.

FDU IT is introducing a series of enhancements to our Office 365 platform. In the near future, many of our distribution lists, formerly known as mailing lists, will be migrated to Office 365. Once this process is complete, the FDU faculty and staff that own these lists will be able to perform basic list administration, including adding and removing members, without assistance from FDU IT.  We will provide list owners with more information on this functionality as soon as it is ready for deployment. 

In the meantime, members of a migrated distribution list will notice a change to their user experience. The “From” field, which previously would have displayed the address of the distribution list, will instead display the email address of the individual sender. Similarly, when a member clicks “Reply” on a distribution list message, their reply will go to the sender of that message. Some recently created lists were already on Office 365 and a few lists will remain on our old platform due to special circumstances.

If you require any assistance or have any additional questions, please call the University Technical Assistance Center at (973)-443-8822.

As a periodic reminder, due to the recent rise in phishing attempts, we have implemented a new, easy to use, and consistent reporting tool which is integrated directly into your email application.

When viewing a message through the office365.fdu.edu web interface, there is now a drop down menu labeled as “Junk”. Simply select phishing from the menu.

If you view your mail from the Microsoft Outlook application, the dropdown menu will be labeled as “Report Message” but the process remains the same. Simply select “Phishing”.

If you are viewing your mail through the Outlook Mobile app on Android or Apple iOS, you will select “Report Junk” and then select “Phishing”.

Once you report a phishing attempt through any of these interfaces, the message will automatically be moved to the deleted items folder and a report will be sent to both FDU IT and Microsoft. There is also an option to filter spam messages. From the same drop down menu, select “Junk” and the message will be moved to the Junk Folder.

If you require any assistance or have any additional questions, please call the University Technical Assistance Center at (973)-443-8822.

On October 14th, at approximately 10PM Eastern, our FDU-Secure wireless network will be updated with a new wireless SSL certificate.  Wireless certificates are a security mechanism that periodically expire by design. 

Upon your first connection to FDU-Secure after the update, you will be prompted to accept the new certificate. The tutorial below can assist with completing the security acceptance process for common platforms including macOS, Windows 10, Android and Apple mobile (iOS) devices.

Accept a New Certificate for FDU-Secure Wireless Network

If you have any questions, please contact UTAC at (973)-443-8822 or open a support case on IT.FDU.EDU.

Beginning tomorrow, FDU will require Cisco Duo Multifactor Authentication (MFA) for all student NetID accounts. We implore any student that has not already enrolled to visit our Duo Student Quick Start Guide and get Duo installed and configured. 

Duo Student Quick Start Guide

Once Cisco Duo is enabled tomorrow, students without MFA will be unable to access any FDU application that uses FDU’s Single Sign On (NetID) until they register. This includes WebCampus.fdu.edu and other sites required for Academic purposes. Failing to register in advance could result in lateness for class as you attempt to install and configure Duo at class time. 

Any student who would like to learn more about MFA please watch this video. If you have any additional questions, please contact the University Technical Assistance Center at (973)-443-8822.

Microsoft enforces an occasional license validation for our enterprise version of their Windows Operating System and Office Software Suite.  For our community, this occurs automatically when an FDU owned device is connected to the FDU network.

Before the pandemic, this process did not require discussion. However, now that many of our faculty and staff members are working remotely, we need to ensure that everyone validates on a routine basis. This can be done by simply logging into the FDU VPN. Please make sure to connect to the VPN at least once per week for a minimum of 30 minutes. This will ensure that the Microsoft validation can occur successfully.

In the event that your license is set to expire in the immediate future, you will see the following error message. 

If you receive this error message, simply connect to the FDU VPN for a period of 30 minutes and the issue should resolve itself. If the message persists after the 30 minute period, please contact the University Technical Assistance Center at (973)-443-8822.

Now that the semester is well under way, it is a good time to remind the community that we are in a period of unprecedented phishing attempts. Our faculty and staff have done a great job in recent months in not responding to the attempts that manage to breach our spam filters. However, new and more convincing attempts are always around the corner. Please review Spot a Phishing Scam for assistance with determining if a message is legitimate.

Spot a Phishing Scam

Additionally, please be aware that for security purposes, your FDU NetID account will be locked after five failed login attempts. In the event that this happens to you, please contact our Technical Assistance Center at (973)-443-8822. They can assist you with unlocking the account and resetting your account password.

Our continued goal is to ensure that your IT experience is as simple as possible during this difficult time. Thank you for your attention.