Nov, 2014

Take the Food Bank Challenge!!

 

Information Technology Services and Financial Services are in a dead heat to collect the most donations for the U of L Students’ Union Food Bank.

Care to join us??

In the spirit of giving and competition this holiday season, they are challenging other departments to attempt to beat them with the number of items. Now, you need to understand that an open box of granola bars only counts as ONE item – not EIGHT. And also, the Food Bank reps do the counting so they will be fair and consistent. In addition, and although not counted as items, cash donations are gladly accepted in lieu of food.

Last year, Financial Services donated 693 items and $136.05 in cash. IT Services donated 505 items and $613. 25 in cash.

Mark Humphries, CIO, has thrown down the gauntlet to all Deans and Executive Directors. How can your department participate, you ask? He says there are three ways:

  1. ‘The Hard Way’: Ask your department to donate items to the Finance donation box located in the A7 area of University Hall.
  2. The Easy Way’: Ask your department to donate items into the ITS collection boxes that we will provide and deliver (just let us know how many you would like and where you would like us to put them by early next week so your faculties have time to donate).  Let us know when they are full and, on the afternoon of December 12th,  we will collect any donation boxes so that items can be consolidated for counting on December 15th.   As this is a collaborative effort, we will give full credit to all those that participate with ITS in the Food Bank Challenge. Alternatively you can bring any donations for the Food Bank (or Toys for Tots, too! see below) to D570.
  3. ‘The Other Way’: Your department can collect its own items and join the challenge.

Food Bank coordinator Shelley Tuff has some recommendations. “All donations are welcome, but we always seem to be short on breakfast items. Some of the items on our wish list include granola, cereal, juices, peanut butter, jelly/jam, canned fruit and vegetables.” She adds they currently have an overstock of soup and beans, but anything they don’t need can be donated to other food banks.

Food bank helpers will be collecting donations on December 15th and 16th and participation updates will appear in UWeekly.

The prize? Well, bragging rights, of course!

For more information on the ULSU Food Bank, please contact Shelley at 403-329-2039 or at food.bank@uleth.ca.

Last year the Salvation Army distributed gifts to 1,300 children, but had to spend $24,000 on gift cards to make up the shortfall. Toys for Tots donations will be picked up in D570 the morning of December 12th by Country 95/B-93 radio.

Contact Diane Boyle at (403) 382-7180 or diane.boyle@uleth.ca for more information.

 

The coffee’s on Leslie – just in time for ‘phishing season’

 

The next time you see Leslie Gatner, Financial Analyst in Financial Services, the coffee’s on her. Gatner’s name was drawn to win the $25 Starbuck’s gift card for completing the online Phishing and Identity Theft course last month.

“We had a good response to the online course, but in my world, 100% completion would be ideal,” says Kevin Vadnais, IT Services Information Security Manager. He says he realizes it may not be realistic but it’s his goal nonetheless, especially with the holiday season looming.

“We’re coming into one of the busiest ‘phishing’ seasons with the upcoming holidays, so I would like to advise the University community to be vigilant.” Vadnais says the Christmas season logically lends itself to shipping scams by the bad guys. “Typically you will see emails from which you’re invited to download a .zip or .exe file that claims to have tracking information on a shipment. The email uses high-quality logos from companies like Canada Post, FedEx and UPS and, in addition, the grammar is far better than the usual phishing emails we see. Once the user clicks on the attachment, what it actually does is download malware on the user’s machine. The malware can contain a variety of threats: for example, Crypto locker is one that holds a computer hostage until a significant ‘ransom’ is paid, and there’s the threat of data theft. The bad guys can capture passwords when doing online banking, find personal data like social insurance numbers in tax returns, and both can lead to identity theft.”

As in all cases, Vadnais advises users to stop and ask themselves if it makes sense to simply click on an attachment, or go to the sender’s website instead to find tracking information. “Use common sense, if you’re not expecting a package, don’t click on a link that says you have one. One of the easiest clues is to hover your cursor over the link provided and compare it to what url shows next to it, or in the bottom of your browser. If it’s phishing or a malicious file, the destination in the link or image which pops up in the hover will not match what the browser text or image is showing. When that happens think twice about proceeding.”

URL hover image

 

 

 

Vadnais says the Information Security website is a good resource to check out if you’re wondering about an email. It contains some of the most current and common threats. He strongly encourages people to take the Security Awareness and Phishing and Identity Theft courses online, and more than once if required – just to refresh the memory. “They are excellent sources of information for everyone.”

Also contained on the site is a form users can complete to report a phishing attack. “The phishing messages we’re concerned about are those that appear in our inboxes, or slip by filters without the ***PHISHING MESSAGE*** alert in the subject line. We can take a lot of those sites down if we report them to the company whose image is being falsely used and alert organizations when we see one of their accounts being abused. This provides us an opportunity to take preventative measures to stop our accounts from being compromised.”

For more information, or to arrange a security session for your unit or department, please contact Kevin Vadnais at kevin.vadnais@uleth.ca.