News

Starting Feb. 9, 2021, UC Davis will begin enrolling students in Duo automatically, after emailing them information about what to expect.

Duo multi-factor authentication (MFA) protects your online life much like a deadbolt secures a door. When you log in to an account protected by Duo, after you enter your usual password, Duo asks you for a second “factor”—typically a temporary code that Duo displays on your smartphone. Accept the code, and you’re in. Hackers who don’t have the second factor cannot get into your account.

The Information Security Symposium at UC Davis, a popular source of ideas, new information, and networking for UC and other higher education security and compliance professionals, is now accepting proposals for the 2021 conference.

The virtual event, hosted by UC Davis, occurs June 15-16. Registration is complimentary this year.

This year’s theme is Adapt. Sessions will focus on:

If you use eduroam, the UC Davis wireless network, this might affect you.

The campus will install a new electronic security certificate on eduroam at 8 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 3. This means you might see a prompt on your phone or other wireless device sometime after then, asking you to accept the new certificate.

If you’re a student at UC Davis, it’s time to enroll in Duo. 

Starting Feb. 9, 2021, UC Davis will begin enrolling students in Duo automatically, after emailing them information about what to expect. Students may also pre-empt the bulk enrollment by obtaining a Duo account by Feb. 5. 

If you searched the campus IT Knowledge Base last year for instructions on how to use Duo at UC Davis, you were part of a popular trend.

Questions about adding a smartphone or enrolling in Duo helped drive traffic to the Knowledge Base, a collection of how-to articles, to a record 1.03 million visits in 2020. That’s up 22 percent from 840,000 in 2019, and more than double the 504,000 recorded in 2018.

If you need help from the IT Express Service Desk during winter break, feel free to give them a call! They’ll be open for six days during the last two weeks of December.

IT Express will be available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Dec. 21-23 and 28-30.

The next UC Davis Information Security Symposium has been scheduled for June 15-16, 2021. The event will present talks, labs and discussions on topics involving cybersecurity and privacy. The theme is “Adapt”—a continuing priority as campuses adjust to changes caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.       

Traditionally, the symposium meets on the UC Davis campus. However, due to the pandemic, the 2021 symposium will use a virtual format. 

Information and Educational Technology (IET) has made it a little easier for faculty, staff and students to learn about and order 170 campus tech services.

The change happened Oct. 15, when IET moved the UC Davis IT Service Catalog into the Service Hub, the central tech service website whose underlying software (ServiceNow) already supports the Knowledge Base, software catalog, and IT Express Service Desk help ticketing system.

Starting Oct. 29, you might start seeing "[Unauthenticated message]" appear in the subject line of some email messages that third-party email vendors send to your UC Davis email account.

The tag doesn’t automatically mean the message is spam, but it probably does mean the vendor needs to work with the campus to comply with UC Davis’ updated authentication process for such messages.

Zoom and Duo are the new names in campus cybersecurity this year, so they’re getting more attention. But to protect yourself from hacks and account breaches, you need to think about your habits as much as you do your technology.

As we enter the new academic year, here are three things you can do as a student to significantly cut your exposure to cyber-risks while you study at UC Davis. These ideas come from the UC Davis Information Security Office. To make your work and privacy even more secure, check out the additional ideas at the end.

Here’s an icebreaker you can use when waiting for your next Zoom meeting to begin:

What core part of UC Davis was viewed 3.28 million times on the first day of classes fall term?

Answer: UC Davis Canvas. The learning management system (LMS) logged that many page views on Sept. 30, a volume more than twice as large as last year’s.

Wireless printing has returned to campus, in limited locations because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

To welcome new students to campus, the IT Express Service Desk will stay open for extended hours during the first part of Aggie Orientation Sept. 25-29.

Update Sept. 21: Zoom now says it will not enforce a previously announced security requirement that all meetings have passcodes or waiting rooms starting Sept. 27. Instead, the company plans to introduce an opt-in administrative setting in November that would "ensure that all meetings have a passcode, waiting room, or 'Only authenticated users can join' " requirement, and "highly recommends" that locations adopt this setting.

The UC Davis Keep Teaching website, a collection of ideas and resources that emerged almost overnight last March to help faculty and TAs shift quickly to remote instruction, now offers a clearer path through its offerings.

On July 2, the site released a major update to the site’s Teaching section to make key resources easier to find, feature peer-to-peer comments from faculty, and present seven pedagogical topics that instructors should consider as they teach remotely.