<div dir="ltr">Dear Highlander Community, <br><br>Beginning this weekend UCR users attempting to access secure systems experienced a CAPTCHA security feature when authenticating their identity via multi-factor authentication (MFA). This is a legitimate feature that was activated as a result of a severe brute-force attack on the University’s systems that began over the weekend. <br><br>In a brute-force attack, the bad actor systematically submits numerous passwords or paraphrases in a trial-and-error attempt to discover a password and gain access to a secure system. As these attacks are automated, an effective means of defense is the Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA). CAPTCHA is a legitimate feature that is part of a comprehensive security program that ITS has been developing and implementing over the past several months in response to an increase in cyberattacks targeting universities.<br><br>Due to the severity of the attack the University experienced this weekend, the CAPTCHA security feature was automatically triggered to protect user accounts. However, because ITS was not able to communicate this particular security feature to the campus in advance of the attack, the CAPTCHA feature caused confusion. In response, CAPTCHA has temporarily been disabled and other mitigation functions have been employed to address the attack. <br><br>ITS always strives to maintain transparency with campus, so we apologize for any confusion caused by this security incident. ITS will provide advance notification to campus before any future deployment of this feature.<br><br>As is evident from this current attack, it is imperative that everyone on campus use cybersmart practices. As a reminder you should follow the basic cybersecurity tips below: <br><ul><li>Never share your password with someone </li><li>Never reuse passwords</li><li>Never accept an MFA request unless you are currently trying to access a secure UCR system </li></ul><div>Please take time to learn more tips and best practices at <a href="https://its.ucr.edu/cybersmart">its.ucr.edu/cybersmart</a>. <br><br>Thank you for your attention to this matter and your partnership in keeping the UCR community safe. <br><br>Enabling Your Continued Success, <br><div><br></div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:106%"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#003da5">Information
Technology Solutions</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:106%"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#003da5">University of
California, Riverside</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:106%"><a href="https://its.ucr.edu/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#003da5">ITS.UCR.EDU</span></a></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#cc0000"><br></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#cc0000">Please Note: This email account is not monitored by ITS
staff. If you require technical support, please take one of the following
actions:</span></b><b><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> </span></b></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><a href="https://ucrsupport.service-now.com/ucr_portal/?id=sc_cat_item&sys_id=d10c39ee0f348300138942bce1050e8b" target="_blank">Submit a support ticket</a> if you need to report an IT
problem </span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><a href="https://ucrsupport.service-now.com/ucr_portal/?id=ucr_sc_home" target="_blank">Submit a request</a> for an IT project, service, or
service enhancement </span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><a href="https://ucrsupport.service-now.com/ucr_portal?id=kb_view2&kb=de6fdb4d37800f00a2e983dcb3990e7b" target="_blank">Browse the ITS Knowledge Base</a> for self-help
articles </span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><a href="https://ucrsupport.service-now.com/ucr_portal?id=sc_category&catalog_id=3a53ea7e1b691c10eab58734ec4bcba0" target="_blank">Browse and download course software</a> from the Student
Software Catalog </span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">For live support,
you can contact the BearHelp helpdesk during normal business hours (M-F,
8am-5pm) at 951-827-4848 </span><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> </span></li>
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