Information Technology Services activities spring 2020

New/emerging/changing services

Information Technology Services (ITS) continues to respond to issues related to the COVID-19 medical crisis. ITS is responsible for maintaining the University’s technology infrastructure, enterprise systems and services, and network connectivity. Fortunately, through judicious support from the University and the campus at large, ITS has built an infrastructure that is supporting the needs of the University in these challenging times, especially as related to remote access and computing. Recently, when the discussion to implement online classes and working from home began, ITS staff evaluated what changes to the infrastructure were needed. Only one significant change was identified, acquiring an increased Virtual Private Network (VPN) capacity. New equipment was quickly purchased, customized, tested and installed, allowing ITS to support the increased VPN demand from remote workers and specialized online classes. This example of proactive planning by the ITS team is just one example of how all agencies across the campus are responding to continuing services and classes to our students during COVID-19 and beyond.

Over the past few months, ITS worked diligently with various groups across the campus to develop and implement governance initiatives. The initial focus is toward data and project governance. This is a collaborative effort and the University now has a Data Governance Policy and a Project Governance Committee. These two efforts will enhance ITS’s service capability to the campus and ensures that the University follows industry standards regarding data management and control.

Discussions between Physical Facilities (PF) and ITS resulted in a very tight partnership. Physical Facilities transferred their IT staff to ITS. This partnership will enable ITS to expand and enhance IT capabilities to PF, resulting in improved access, user efficiencies and increased data management appropriate for University needs and standards.

The Enterprise Systems and applications group worked closely with the Physical Facilities Lock Shop to implement a new key management ‘Keystone’ system. What previously was a fragmented key management process is now a comprehensive, easily managed and controlled key management process. The new key management system supports the University’s Building Access/Management Policy issued last fall and the Morse Watchman key boxes that are being installed throughout the University.

The “Chosen Name” project (Phase 1), which allows any student or employee to identify a chosen (preferred) first name was implemented in January. Phase 2 (which is the modification of ancillary and departmental systems and applications) of the Chosen Name project is presently under way. The unique chosen name is part of an individual’s record and supplements their legal name in Binghamton University information systems. Chosen names will be displayed in lieu of the legal name in end-user facing systems that do not have a legal requirement to use a legal name. Binghamton University students and employees must still be able to provide government-issued identification with their legal name where and when required.

The Information Security Team’s new Chief Information Officer Mike Behun has been developing relationships with University staff. He and his team are focused on information security issues and have implemented a methodology to deny access to ‘aged and inactive’ computer accounts. This is just one avenue that malicious hackers use as a venue to send out seemingly legitimate messages, spam or phishing attempts. Additionally, the Information Security team and the ITS communications team issue regular anti-phishing messages based on new schemes as soon as they are known.

The Information Security team averaged 317 DMCA (Digital Music Copyright Act) complaints (100% increase) and over 483 other security issues (11% decrease) in the last three months. Each complaint necessitates thorough investigation and remediation, quite often necessitates involving other IT support personnel and has, at times, required assistance from the campus attorneys.

Phishing and other malicious emails continues to plague the University. In January, ITS implemented [EXTERNAL EMAIL] tagging on all in-bound email. he tagging makes it easier for one to identify off-campus potential suspicious emails; however the ‘bad actors’ are persistent. After the [EXTERNAL EMAIL] tagging was implemented, we saw a marked increase in ‘hacked’ Binghamton University accounts being used to send out phishing messages; all under the guise of appearing to be valid emails. To combat this, the security team implemented a methodology to identify and disable computer accounts for individuals no longer authorized to have access to Binghamton’s network. However, phishing messages are on the rise again as ‘bad actors’ are sending out informational messages about COVID-19 with ‘click-here links’ that attempt to collect personal data. ITS continued to work closely with Google to improve Binghamton’s email hygiene by reducing unwanted emails and spam. As soon as ITS becomes aware of a phishing scam or spam emails; we blog about it, update our security pages, post to Dateline or B-Line as appropriate, tweet about it, comment to reddit board and put up posters.

Upgrades to technical infrastructure

ITS staff completed another 20 projects in the past three months, 83 projects thus far this fiscal year, and is actively working on 56 projects with 37 others waiting for resources (staff available, equipment, vendor support, etc.) and 17 projects on hold. Demand for ITS support continues with 104 project requests received thus far this year.

ITS support to the University

The Help Desk staff received over 2,300 calls (10% increase) for assistance and opened over 4,900 Incidents (10% increase) in Service Now during this quarter. The last two weeks have seen a spike in calls and incidents due to concern over COVID-19. Typical assistance requests ranged from a simple password reset to servicing a laptop; however in the past two weeks the Help Desk has seen a spike in remote access questions and computer customizations. Top requests for the last three months were: Blackboard, phishing scams, passwords, University owned computers and PODS account assistance/password resets. Additionally, the Help Desk staff scanned and scored almost 200 academic tests in the past three months. Student printing from December until now was 2.3 million B&W pages (8% decrease) and over 99,000 color pages (4% decrease) printed.