April 4, 2016

Today's topics:

Beware of Ransomware

The past two weeks have seen a dramatic rise in ransomware attacks both in the outside world and here at Cornell. Fraudulent emails are a common mode of attack. Please continue to be vigilant and delete suspicious emails immediately. You may also consult the IT@Cornell Phish Bowl for a list of fraudulent emails seen at Cornell.

With a ransomware infection, our only recourse (apart from paying the ransom) is to restore your files from backups. Therefore, please remember to store your files on CLASSE's central filesystems, many of which are backed up automatically. If you need help doing so, please submit a ServiceRequest.

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General network and server maintenance will occur every Tuesday from 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM. The CLASSE-IT group will always announce any expected disruptions in our NewsLetter and via CLASSE-IT-NEWS-L, but with the size and complexity of our network there is always the potential for something to go wrong. We will do our best to contain all network maintenance and planned outages to Tuesdays from 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM.

Unless other arrangements have been made, CLASSE-managed Windows systems may be updated and rebooted on Tuesday morning at 2:00 AM, so please avoid critical or lengthy operations at that time. For more details, please see SystemExpectations.

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Questions or problems? Submit a service request (or email service-classe@cornell.edu).

Other resources:

• CLASSE-IT Home Page
• Previous newsletters

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