September 2022 update from CIS

October 4, 2022

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As usual, September flew by.  I hope you have all settled into the Fall semester and are finding joy in your work and play. 

Cybersecurity Awareness Month

October 2004 saw the birth of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and it has been renewed by successive US presidents.  It is led by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).  This year’s theme is See Yourself in Cyber and CIS will be doing something each week to build on that theme.  

One of the calls is to “Think Before You Click.”  It is a fine piece of advice, but we know that everyone is busy, rushed and sometimes makes mistakes.  So what happens in our environment if you do click on a bad link and maybe give up your credentials?   

  1. Do NOT power off your computer. 
  2. Immediately disconnect your computer from the network by turning off wi-fi or removing the ethernet cable.
  3. As soon as possible, call the Help Desk.
  4. The user support staff will discuss the situation with you and determine next steps, which could be as simple as changing your password and running an anti-virus scan or as complicated as taking a forensic image of your computer, depending on what happened. The time it takes can vary from one hour to several days, again depending on the situation. We will ensure that you have access to a computer in the meantime.    

In the face of malware, many security experts advise a computing environment that is completely managed by an IT group responsible for approving software applications and monitoring every machine.  We do not think that appropriate for our educational network, so we need to have “compensating controls.”  In our case, fast investigation and quick response are one of the compensating controls.  Clearly, steps 1 and 2 (above) of this compensating control are up to you: See Yourself in Cyber!

CIS FAST goals

Every year, each HMC vice president proposes annual goals for their area during a Cabinet retreat in the summer.  This year, CIS decided to give some of our goals the FAST treatment (see With Goals, FAST Beats SMART).  FAST stands for “Frequently discussed, Ambitious, Specific and Transparent”, which the authors believe is core to effective goals.  As part of the “frequently discussed” aspect, we intend to include something each month in our updates.  This month, we will just introduce the fast goals, which you can read about in our CIS FAST goals document (HMC credentials required).  The goals are in the areas of Learning Management Systems, WiFi, the HMC IT Community, and Digital Transformation. 

Discussions of Canvas

Speaking of learning management systems, in September, we took a second step in the campus discussion of campus (the first was a Bite of Learning last Spring).   We brought to FEC a recommendation that HMC begin trialing Canvas with a view to moving away from Sakai along with the rest of the Claremont Colleges.  Sakai is dwindling rapidly across the country, with only about 50 institutions left using it.  This means that vendors of tools such as Gradescope and Piazza are less aware of it and technical development of Sakai has slowed down.  In response to this situation, several of the other Claremont institutions have already made the move (CGU, Scripps, KGI, Pomona is doing a trial).  In order to ensure that our students have a harmonized experience in the learning management system, we think that HMC should follow suit.  The FEC agreed that we should explore Canvas, so expect more discussion and, if you’re interested in testing Canvas, please get in touch. 

Computer Upgrade Program (CUP)

We launched this year’s edition of CUP on September 16!  Forty two people in fourteen departments have computers that are eligible for upgrade, and all have received emails with instructions about how to get a new computer.  As a reminder, the CUP “insures” your newest computer, no matter what source of funds was used for the original purchase, to make sure that it is eligible for replacement and our College stock of computers doesn’t get too old.  You can always check the records we have for you by visiting the CUP website (menu: your systems ->  inventory report).

Special thanks to Jonathan Ebueng for his work on revamping the website.

That’s it for the September update from CIS. Thanks for taking the time to read.  Enjoy October!

On behalf of all in CIS,

Joseph