Author Archives: Mary Backus

Avoid sending event cancellations by mistake

Recently, there have been a rash of people (myself included) accidently cancelling events. Here is a description of why this so easily can happen, and how to avoid falling into the trap.

If you have an Iphone and you use the Outlook app for IOS, Microsoft has added a “feature” : when you receive an email (not a calendar invitation) that contains a date and time, it automatically turns the date and time into a link. When you click on the link, it asks “Do you want to create an event?” and if you say yes, it puts the event on your calendar, which itself is great, BUT, it sends invitations from you to everyone who received the original email. When your phone then starts exploding with “out of office” and can’t deliver messages, you cancel the event on your calendar to stop the onslaught, which sends a cancellation to everyone who received the original email. There is no warning that this is what is going to happen.

So, although it is very tempting to create a calendar event by clicking on a link in an email, please be sure that you want to invite all of the recipients before you do!

Many accounts require password reset due to recent phishing attack

Almost 100 people fell victim to a “phishing” email purporting to announce an “Important Meeting”. In order to protect the rest of the Middlebury account holders, the accounts which were compromised were disabled, and will need a password reset. If you have trouble logging in to your Middlebury account, it is likely that you are one of the victims of this attack. Please visit go.middlebury.edu/activate and reset your network password. This is an important warning to all that we should be extremely cautious about clicking on a link in an email. Although these phishing emails are well disguised, there are clues that they are not valid, so please think twice before clicking on any link in an email. More helpful hints on how to protect yourself can be found here:
http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/technology/infosec/education

Issue with access to Middlebury Google Services – August 5, 2016

09:30 AM
We’re investigating reports of an issue with authentication into Middlebury Google services. We will provide more information shortly.

11:00 AM Update
We are working on resolving an issue with authentication into Middlebury Google services. We will provide more information shortly. Thank you for your patience.

2:40 PM Update
We are now working with Google Support to resolve an issue with authentication into Middlebury Google services. Thank you for your patience.

5:15 PM Update
We are continuing to work with Google Support to try to resolve an issue with authentication into Middlebury Google services. Updates will follow.

8/6/2016 4:30 PM Update
The authentication issue with Middlebury Google has been resolved.

MIIS & Middlebury Drupal sites have a known issue

All Clear:  the latest content has been restore, sites current as of approximately 9:00 EST this morning, sites operating normally.

Update:  It was necessary to restore the supporting database for our primary Middlebury and MIIS drupal web sites.  The sites are now responsive, however we currently are restoring more current versions of the database, while this is taking place, there will be some older content displayed.

There is an issue that is causing the MIIS and Middlebury drupal sites to be unresponsive or slow. ITS is working on the issue and expect to resolve it this morning.