DoIT has been made aware of two problems in the academic building wireless system that may be impacting users’ ability to connect. The new Residence Hall Wi-Fi has not been impacted. 

The Issues:

• Wireless users may not be able to connect or may experience poor performance in large classrooms with many students

• Students who connect to eduroam or UMBC Visitor within the Residential network and then attempt to connect to the same wireless network within an academic building may experience delayed connection times or fail to connect

The Solution:

On Sunday, September 8th, between 8 P.M. - 10 P.M., DoIT will be implementing an upgrade to the system to address both problems. During this timeframe, users in the academic building wireless network may see short disruptions in service. This work will not impact wireless service in the Residential network.

These issues were first discovered as a result of support requests that were submitted by faculty and students, which upon investigation, appear to be affecting a broader portion of the campus.

On Monday, August 19th, DoIT updated the certificate for the eduroam Wi-Fi network at UMBC to enhance security and privacy. This certificate must be updated annually.

If you see a message on your device asking you to verify or trust the certificate before connecting, or an error message about connecting to eduroam, then you should be able to fix those by using our eduroam setup guide to configure your device for eduroam. That process takes about a minute, and afterwards you shouldn't see alerts about subsequent certificate updates. Your device should connect automatically to the eduroam network while at UMBC, or at any other eduroam-supporting institution. You will need to repeat the process whenever you change your MyUMBC password.

Our setup guide has detailed instructions for common types of devices. If you have questions or need assistance getting connected or reconnected to eduroam, please contact the Technology Support Center (TSC) at 410-455-3838 or submit a ticket at help.umbc.edu.

The following images reflect what you will see when accepting the certificate:

Reconnecting on Windows 10

Reconnecting on MacOS

Reconnecting on iOS/iPadOS

If your iOS/iPadOS device does not prompt you:

1. Open Settings

2. Open Wi-Fi

3. Tap eduroam

4. Tap Trust on the "radius.noc.umbc.edu" certificate prompt.

If you have questions or need assistance getting connected or reconnected to eduroam, please contact the Technology Support Center (TSC) at 410-455-3838 or submit a ticket at help.umbc.edu.

After more than twenty-five years as a staff member at UMBC, Damian Doyle has accepted the position of Deputy CIO at UVA. As someone who  has worked closely with Damian each day for the last ten years, I’m both excited and saddened. Excited because I have watched Damian grow personally and professionally into an outstanding leader who excels at both the human and technical aspects of higher education. I know Damian’s best work is still to come and all of higher education will benefit. Saddened, because I will miss him as a valued colleague and friend. Watching how connected Damian is perceived across the higher education community, I’ve warned him he will need to set aside time for all of us at UMBC who have come to take those short impromptu conversations for granted to stay connected to him.

Damian’s contributions to UMBC and the Higher education community go well beyond information technology and speak to his impact as a person. Damian has been connected to UMBC since birth, both of Damian’s parents were UMBC graduates who met in that period called the Founding Four years. Damian chose to attend UMBC, earning both a B.S. in Computer Science and M.S. in Information Systems from UMBC. Damian has been actively involved in shared governance, serving on the UMBC Professional Staff Senate, including two terms as President. He has been actively involved in mentoring efforts on campus and works tirelessly to advance UMBC. One example is his work  advancing STEM in K-12 through Maryland’s FIRST LEGO Robotics competition. Damian has pulled in many of his UMBC friends and colleagues to help organize the state championship each spring that brings thousands to the campus. In addition, during his time here at UMBC he has been active in UMBC’s Center for Women in IT and serves on the UMBC Alumni Board. In 2022, he also received the UMBC Presidential Distinguished Staff award.

Nationally, Damian is highly engaged with organizations like EDUCAUSE and Internet2. He received the EDUCAUSE Rising Star award in 2018. He has served as a faculty member for EDUCAUSE’s Senior Director Institute and their online Management Program and currently chairs the EDUCAUSE National Recognition Committee. Within Internet2, he chairs the Cloud Services Architecture Advisory Committee, co-chairs a track of the annual Technology Exchange conference, and is a long-standing member of the planning committee for the Higher Education Cloud Forum. Damian has been highly sought after as a mentor to a number of IT professionals at other institutions as they are beginning their leadership journey.

Damian will leave DoIT in a good place. He has built a very strong team and we know his colleagues are equipped technically and professionally to take on the added responsibilities. His direct reports –  Todd Haddaway, Ray Soellner, David Toothe, and Jason Paluck – have been working with Damian each step of our journey. Damian leaves UMBC on a high-note, having just been funded as Principal Investigator on a NSF CC*Storage proposal submitted by UMBC. His DoIT colleagues will continue to see Damian at conferences such as EDUCAUSE and Internet2 and will likely feel strange hearing Damian mention his affiliation as Virginia but we will know he is thoroughly Black & Gold.

Officially, Damian is taking advantage of his long tenure to actuallyofficially retire from UMBC. In this way, he will remain part of our extended community. Plans for a time and place for those outside of DoIT to wish Damian well will be shared soon. Damian, I know I speak for all your DoIT colleagues in thanking you for your collegiality and service to UMBC!

Over the past month, the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) has seen an increase in password compromises. Whether through phishing attempts or brute force attacks, there are plenty of ways of preventing your account from becoming compromised:

• Do not accept any Duo Pushes that you did not initiate.  Once an adversary is able to crack someone's password, they still need to get through Duo’s two step verification process. If you see a suspicious push sent to your device, deny it and report the attempt. For more information, please visit this FAQ article.

• Regularly change your password. Old passwords that are used for multiple services are susceptible to being compromised. DoIT recommends using a unique password for UMBC and changing your password periodically in case your password has been compromised in the past. Check out this article on how to change your password.

• Check your backup reset email and security questions for changes. Once an adversary has gotten access to an account, they will often try to establish persistent access to it by changing the reset email and security questions. To make sure your Information has not been changed, check to see if your recovery information is correct. For information on how to view and update your security questions, refer to the How do I setup my security questions to reset a forgotten password? FAQ.

If you find that your password is no longer working, it is possible your account was scrambled or locked.

We scramble an account if: 

• There are signs that the password to the account has been compromised. If your account is scrambled, all you need to do is reset your password.

We lock an account if: 

• There are signs that an adversary has gotten past Duo’s two-step authentication and has changed the recovery information to the account. In order to recover a locked account, you will need to contact security@umbc.edu to verify your identity.
  
  

The DoIT Technology Support Center is looking to hire additional student consultants to work during the fall semester and beyond. Please see our job description below and visit our job posting on Handshake to apply. (Search for DoIT Technology Support Center Student Consultant.) The application will be open until July 10, 2024.

TSC Student Consultant Job Description

Technology Support Center (TSC) student consultants are the first points of technical contact for the UMBC community and those who do well often go on to work in other areas of the Division of Information Technology (DoIT). Minimally, consultants are expected to provide initial triage and support for a wide range of information technologies including accounts, hardware, instructional technologies, networking, software, telecommunications, and basic web development.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to the following:

• Provide technical assistance to users by phone and online;
• Answer TSC phones in a professional and courteous manner;
• Create, update and resolve tickets in the Request Tracker (RT) ticketing system;
• Create, update, suggest and recommend relevant FAQ articles to users (www.umbc.edu/faq);
• Provide direct assistance to users on technical issues they cannot easily resolve on their own;
• Respond to all work-related communications in a timely manner;
• Escalate urgent problems to the Full-Time staff, as appropriate.

Required Skills and Experience

• Demonstrated ability to effectively communicate by phone or in writing.
• Demonstrated writing ability.
• Demonstrated ability to achieve successful outcomes in handling difficult situations and customers.
• Demonstrated analytical and troubleshooting skills.
• Ability & willingness to learn coupled with a clear understanding of one’s technical abilities, so as to triage and escalate an issue that leads to an effective solution for the user.