Issue 28, November 23, 2021

Change in Email Forwarding Policy for Faculty, Staff, and Students

For anyone automatically forwarding your email to a non-UT email address, ITS recommends that you begin using your UTHSC email account as soon as possible to prevent an interruption in services.

UT's Microsoft 365 Outlook is available for all. You can learn more about your UT email account options in TechConnect. Additional information about this change will be available later this month.

What if I have a business reason for an exemption?

We continue to evaluate the use of auto-forwarding for work-related exceptions. Faculty and staff will be able to request an exemption for qualifying email domains later this month.

Why is the university making this change?

Forwarding your email to an external email address presents an unnecessary risk to the university. It does not relieve the university or employee from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or other types of discovery. Therefore, the restrictions on email forwarding are made as part of a continuous effort to protect the university's information.

The ITS Service Desk is closed on Thursday, November 25, and Friday, November 26.

Although the university is closed, ITS continues to monitor the network, email, and major computer applications. For any information on outages or updates, please visit the TechConnect portal home page.

Wishing you the happiest of holidays!

Have you checked out our UTHSC TechConnect portal lately? We added four new login buttons for Banner, Blackboard, Qualtrics, and QuestionPro for your convenience.

TechConnect is a living system, and we are continually updating it to keep it fresh and up-to-date for you.

Have an idea for something you don't see there but wish we had? Let us know by emailing its@uthsc.edu.

Stata by StataCorp

Stata is a general-purpose software package for statistics, data management, and graphics. You can control it using its programming language or its graphical user interface. Stata is designed to be easily extendable, and there are hundreds of free add-ons available for it in Internet repositories. Stata is particularly strong in time series, panel data, and the analysis of complex, non-random samples. Its data must fit into your computer's main memory, limiting the amount of data it can handle.

Learn more about Stata on OIT's Research Software website. Learn when to use it, where to run it, how to learn, and get help.

Microsoft has some excellent training courses we recommend. As UTHSC faculty or staff, you have access to all Microsoft 365 apps listed. Students may or may not have access to these apps.

Get Started with Microsoft Bookings
This course introduces Microsoft Bookings to help you simplify how you manage and schedule appointments. Register

• Nov 29 - 9:30 am - 10:30 am

Collaborating with Microsoft Whiteboard
Microsoft Whiteboard is the collaborative digital canvas in Microsoft 365 for effective meetings and engaging learning. Use Microsoft Whiteboard tools to maximize outcomes with ink, stickers, and more. Register

• Dec 01 - 8:00 am - 9:00 am

Do you know your VLOOKUP from your PMT? If you don't, you may want to watch this Top Ten Excel Functions video from Simon Sez IT. In 50 short minutes, you can learn all you need to know about Excel formulas and functions. This video is great for beginners or advanced users alike!

The holidays are fast approaching, and you may plan to take time off work. Be sure to let everyone know you are not available (and not just ignoring their emails!) by setting up an out of office automatic reply.

It's easy to set your reply by following these step-by-step Outlook: Out of Office Automatic Reply instructions in our TechConnect knowledge base.

Still have questions? Contact the Service Desk at 901.448.2222.

Last newsletter, we discussed how to shop safely online. With the holiday season in full swing now, there are other scams to watch out for. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has some warnings and instructions surrounding some common scams.

Social Media Shopping Scams

• Consumers should beware of posts on social media sites that appear to offer vouchers or gift cards. Some may appear as holiday promotions or contests. Others may appear to be from known friends who have shared the link. Often, these scams lead consumers to participate in an online survey that is designed to steal personal information.
• If you click an ad through a social media platform, do your due diligence to check the legitimacy of the website before providing credit card or personal information.

• Consumers should beware of sites and posts offering work they can do from home. These opportunities rely on convenience as a selling point but may have fraudulent intentions. Consumers should carefully research the job posting and individuals or companies offering employment.
• Read more at Cyber Criminals Use Fake Job Listings To Target Applicants' Personally Identifiable Information and FBI Warns of Money Mule Schemes Exploiting the COVID-19 Pandemic.

• During the holiday season, consumers should be careful if someone asks them to purchase gift cards for them. In these scams, the victims received either a spoofed email, a spoofed phone call, or a spoofed text from a person in authority requesting the victim purchase multiple gift cards for either personal or business reasons.
• As an example, a victim receives a request to purchase gift cards for a work-related function or as a present for a special occasion. The gift cards are then used to facilitate the purchase of goods and services, which may or may not be legitimate. Some of these incidents are combined with additional requests for wire transfer payments, as described in classic Business Email Compromise (BEC) scenarios.
• Read more at Business Email Compromise: Gift Cards.

• Fraudulent charity scams, in which perpetrators set up false charities and profit from individuals who believe they are making donations to legitimate charitable organizations, are common after disasters, which the FBI has seen during the COVID pandemic. Charity fraud also rises during the holiday season, when individuals seek to make end-of-year tax-deductible gifts or are reminded of those less fortunate and wish to contribute to a good cause. Seasonal charity scams can pose greater difficulties in monitoring because of their widespread reach, limited duration, and when done over the Internet, minimal oversight.
• Charity scam solicitations may come through cold calls, email campaigns, crowdfunding platforms, or fake social media accounts and websites. They are designed to make it easy for victims to give money and feel like they’re making a difference. Perpetrators may divert some or all the funds for their personal use, and those most in need will never see the donations.
• Read more at FBI Sees Rise in Fraud Schemes Related to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic.

• These scams involve fraudsters who use stolen credit cards to buy items—usually expensive items—online. Instead of having the items shipped to the billing address, the fraudster sends them to what’s called a “reshipper.” At the “reshipper” location, the items are repackaged and usually sent overseas. There they can often be sold at a high price on the black market.
• Fraudsters will convince unwitting individuals to be money mules and accept the deliveries and become the “reshipper.” That person has now become part of their criminal enterprise without knowing it. Don’t be a money mule!

Report any fraudulent activity using UTHSC resources to the Office of Cybersecurity (itsecurity@uthsc.edu). You can also report any fraudulent activity to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.

Travis Grose
In each issue, we feature one of our amazing ITS team members. We learn more about Travis Grose with our Customer Support Technology team in this segment.

What is your role and how long have you been in ITS at UTHSC? I am one of the software techs and have been with UTHSC for just over three years.

What is a day in the life of Travis like? My days are normally spent servicing computers in the medicine and pediatrics departments. The pediatrics department at Le Bonheur is one of the largest departments that I service.

What is your favorite thing about working at UTHSC? I enjoy being part of the ITS team, and like being able to go on-site and talk to everybody that I help.

What’s something most people don’t know about you? I was in the theater department at Horn Lake high school and ran the sound and light board for many plays and musicals. I am also a graduate of Ole Miss.