Committee meeting - July 29, 2021

Carol Lu   
Secretary to the Committee   
July 29, 2021
   
Present: Adam Savage, Andrew McAlorum, Bill Baer,Don Duff-McCracken, Erick Engelke, Jason Testart, Lawrence Folland, Paul Miskovsky, Pratik Patel, Robyn Landers, Steven Bourque, Trevor Bain

Regrets: Andrea Chappell, Daryl Dore, Greg Smith, Greg Parks
 
Agenda   

  1. Chair’s remarks (Steven Bourque) [5 min.]
  2. Approval of the minutes from Thursday July 15, 2021 [5 min.]
  3. External email banners (Steven Bourque) [15 min.]

  4. Email Audit (Steven Bourque) [10 min.]

  5. Cisco email security URL formatting (Lawrence Folland) [10 min.]
  6. Standardized email address for DNS technical contact in Infoblox (Robyn Landers) [10 min.]
  7. Other business and roundtable discussion – all [20 min.]
  8. Next CTSC Meeting [Will be held Thursday July 29 at 1:30 p.m.]

Chair's remarks

  • Thanks to Andrew McAlorum for chairing the last meeting

Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting 

  • The previous meeting’s minutes were accepted as distributed.   
     

External email banners (Steven Bourque)

  • 48% of colleges/universities are using external email message tagging
  • The Cisco email appliance has an external email tagging feature that can be enabled
    • Looking to add an 'external' tag to the email subject line rather than the email body or email signature

Comments and discussion

  • There may be some UW domains that are external
    • These domains can be flagged so that they don't get the 'external' tag 
  • CTSC members are overall supportive of this change
  • Adding an 'external' tag makes phishing attempts more obvious to users
    • People don't always pay attention to the sending email address or to mispellings (e.g. @uwaterlo.ca)
  • Timeframe for this change is TBD

Email Audit (Steven Bourque)

  • Email regarding internal audit report was shared with CTSC members 

Comments and discussion

  • Computer Science will be getting rid of CS email servers; will there be any issues with redirecting CS domains to the uwaterloo domain
    • No forseeable issues with redirecting domains; the sending address will be @uwaterloo.ca and the message will be received at @cs.uwaterloo.ca
    • CS users will continue to receive email redirected to @uwaterloo.ca when CS servers are discontinued
  • Jason will notify contacts listed on the list of mail servers

Cisco email security URL formatting (Lawrence Folland)

  • Had a discussion regarding this topic during the last CTSC meeting, any additional considerations to add from Steve? 

Comments and discussion

  • Cisco email security URL formatting wasn't discussed at CTSC; this was a default setting for the Cisco email appliance
  • URL rewrites occur when Cisco suspects an email is potentially suspicious but is not sure; the email gets delivered to the user but the [SUSPICIOUS] tag is added and the URLs are formatted to inform the user of a suspicious message
  • Domains that are marked as suspicious can be allow listed by request if needed

Standardized email address for DNS technical contact in Infoblox (Robyn Landers)

  • Looking to finalize standardize email format for DNS contacts in Infoblox

Comments and discussion

  • Currently with no standardize format, it is difficult to determine which department the contacts belong to 
  • There may be too many independent operators which could prevent this from being standardized (e.g. Engineering)
  • Mike Patterson is in the process of creating a tool that allows bulk updates to be made in Infoblox
  • Naming conventions are not 'correct' by default for shared buildings (e.g Engineering)
  • All CTSC members are supportive of this change
    • A proposal will be drafted and sent to CTSC members for feedback and approval
    • Follow up on this item in a future CTSC meeting

Other Business/Roundtable 

Technology Integrated Services - IST, Steve

  • Regarding Eric's email on updates for the Wi-Fi refresh
    • Updates for this project are posted at https://uwaterloo.ca/information-systems-technology/campus-wireless-refresh
    • There haven't been any major systematic issues reported to Network Services, however there have not been very many reports from users in general 
    • In E7 there are currently 66 users; 2 of those users are having authentication issues
      • Users experiencing issues can submit an RT with the following information: 
        • Location
        • Start time of the issue
        • MAC addresses

Client Services - IST, Andrew

  • Regarding the use of Hopin for the President's forum
    • This tool was set up for University Relations with the help of IST's Departmental Campus Applications (DCA) group
    • UR, MUR, and Advancement signed a one-year contract for Hopin
      • IST recommended the purchase of an enterprise license so users could use Single Sign On but an enterprise license was not purchased
  • The IST Project Manager position is being reposted next Wednesday
    • Original secondment offer was denied by the home department
    • Offer to external candidate as a contract position was not accepted as the candidate accepted another offer
    • Position will be reposted as a permanent position
  • IST Account Rep position for academic support units is now open

Science, Paul

  • Sharcnet was affected by the power outage on Monday
  • Users with requipment in the Sharcnet room should turn off machines for future outages to avoid any issues
  • Are other faculties also still waiting for classrooms to be outfitted for streaming? 
    • Science rooms are 90% complete
    • Engineering and Math/Computer Science are still waiting for some rooms to be outfitted
  • Netmon interface can be slow; takes minutes to do a port change
    • Any issues or feature suggestions regarding netmon can be passed on to Network Services

Information Security Services - IST, Jason 

  • New research security job description distributed via email to CTSC
    • Let Jason know of any suggestions for changes/additions to the posting by mid-August

Environment, Don

  • Environment will be opening the Help Desk in the Fall with reduced hours
  • Was told Zoom communications would be left to the faculty IT staff but a message was posted in the Daily Bulletin and on Twitter

Engineering, Erick

  • Any update on the recommendation for keyboard covers?
    • No further updates from the Safety Office yet

Health, Trevor

  • Regarding return to campus guidance, Health was told:
    • Disinfectant wipes will be more limited during the Fall term
    • It won't be necessary to disinfect a workstation between every use
    • Physical distancing requirements are not expected to be in effect

Computer Science, Lawrence

  • For Jason's research security position: might be a good idea to mention consulting researchers as part of the role

Math, Robyn

  • Lessons learned from the power outage
    • Wires had to be run up from the loading dock to the machine room
    • Had just enough cooling and power from the UPS to complete the work before any issues occurred
    • Electricians did not notice the wiring was incorrect; when the generator was turned on, the UPS didn't have any power

WUSA, Pratik

  • Stats from the WUSA box project were shared with CTSC members