NEW PHISHING E-MAIL SCAMS THREATEN K-STATE PASSWORDS, eIDS
Hackers have been very successful at tricking K-Staters into giving away their eID password -- in 2009 more than 430 K-Staters replied to phishing e-mails, sending their eID passwords to criminals who used them to log into K-State's e-mail and send thousands of spam e-mails. As K-State's IT security team, Help Desk and IT support staff have worked to prevent and slow such attacks, hackers' techniques have evolved accordingly.
K-State's advice for the last two years has been to never provide passwords in e-mails to anyone under any circumstances.
On Jan. 23 hackers sent a scam e-mail asking the recipient to click on a link that goes to a Web site that asks for an eID and password. The Web site, hosted on a server in the Netherlands, is an exact replica of K-State's single sign-on page. When recipients enter their eID and password on this fake page, the information is sent to the criminals as if it had been provided in an e-mail. After the information is entered, the browser is immediately re-directed to K-State's homepage to make you think you successfully logged in.
Fortunately, within a short time of receiving this scam e-mail, Trend Micro OfficeScan's Web Reputation Services blocked access to this malicious replica, as did Firefox's anti-phishing filter. This limited the damage done. However, a similar scam Jan. 28 included another replica of K-State's single sign-on page, this time hosted in Switzerland. The latest attempt was not initially caught by anti-phishing filters.
If you were tricked by either of these scams or others like it, go to K-State's e-Profile page and change your eID password immediately.
For more information on how to spot e-mail scams, go to: http://ow.ly/17E2X
Courtesy of Information Technology Services.
REAGAN RETURNING TO THE FACULTY
After serving in the office of K-State's president for the past 24 years, Charles Reagan will return to the faculty at the end of this academic year. He directly served Presidents Jon Wefald and Kirk Schulz during a K-State career that began in 1967. He began working in the president's office in 1986.
Reagan assisted Schulz and incoming athletic director John Currie with their transition to K-State during the past year.
Reagan has chaired the Landon Lecture Series for the past 26 years, bringing high-profile speakers including former and sitting U.S. presidents, foreign heads of state, Pulitzer Prize winners, Nobel laureates, senators, prominent historians and national media personalities.
He also supervises the offices of affirmative action, general counsel, McCain Auditorium and the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art. Through grants and fundraising, Reagan has brought more than $19 million to K-State. Since 2003, when he became administratively responsible for funding the Institute for Military History, he has been principal investigator for nearly $10 million in federal grants for security studies at K-State.
Reagan, originally from Wichita, began his K-State career as an assistant professor of philosophy, becoming department head in 1980.
A 1964 graduate of Holy Cross College in Worcester, Mass., Reagan received a master's degree from the University of Kansas in 1966, and in 1967 became the first person to earn a doctorate in philosophy from KU. Reagan also studied at the Institute de'etudes europeennes and the University of Paris and was a researcher in Paris and a Fulbright visiting professor at the University of Toulouse in the mid-1970s.
Reagan is a specialist in French philosophy and is an expert on the famous French philosopher Paul Ricoeur. Reagan is the author of six books and numerous articles. During the 2010-11 academic year, Reagan will be on a full-year sabbatical, during which time he will work on two books, including a memoir of his recollections of personal conversations with his friend, Ricoeur.
He also has had a parallel career as a commuter airline pilot, flight instructor, charter pilot and professor of aviation at K-State.
A search for Reagan's successor will begin immediately. The job description is available at: http://www.k-state.edu/president/jobs/
K-STATE LIBRARIES CELEBRATE BLACK HISTORY MONTH WITH FILM SERIES
Three films confronting racial prejudice highlight K-State Libraries' 2010 film series celebrating Black History Month.
The Libraries will host the films Feb. 23-25 in the Dow Chemical Multicultural Resource Center on the third floor of K-State's Hale Library. All films will be shown three times and are free and open to the public.
The films are:
* "To Kill a Mockingbird," a 1962 adaptation of Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name, which speaks powerfully of how African-Americans were treated in the '30s, particularly in the South. It will be shown at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 23; 4 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 24; and 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 25.
* "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," a comedy that takes on the serious topic of interracial marriage. The film demonstrates that society has come a long way since the movie was made in 1967. It will be shown at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 23; 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 24; and 4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 25.
* "Akeelah and the Bee," an inspirational film made in 2006 about an 11-year-old girl overcoming various types of prejudice to compete in the National Spelling Bee. It will be shown at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 23; 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 24; and 2 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 25.
The Dow Multicultural Resource Center represents the core of K-State Libraries' effort to create community space for teaching and learning about the reality of human diversity, the changing landscape of American demographics and the impact of globalization.