Thursday, July 25, 2024

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• Campus Housing Vacancy Applications now open
• Cybersecurity expert reflects on the CrowdStrike global tech outage
• Supports available for Bangladeshi community
• Look out employers, here comes Gen Z, and other words of warning

Campus Housing Vacancy Applications now open

A message from Campus Housing.

Campus Housing’s Vacancy application is open for first-year students. Students who may have missed the First-Year Guarantee Deadline for various reasons can still apply to live on Campus, applying for both Fall/Winter and Fall/Spring housing contracts. The Vacancy Application is not guaranteed; however students over the years have been successful in receiving a room offer throughout the month of August, even right up to move-in weekend.

The Vacancy application does not require a deposit to apply and students have the option to rank their residence preferences. Students living in Campus Housing can benefit from the all-inclusive pricing and the numerous programs and supports provided through Residence Life and Residence Learning teams.

Students can complete the Vacancy Application on the Campus Housing website. 

Cybersecurity expert reflects on the CrowdStrike global tech outage

By Dr. Kami Vaniea and Regina Ashna Singh. This is an excerpt of an article that originally appeared on the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute website

The Blue Screen of Death—a looming nightmare of many—came to fruition last week during a global tech outage set off by one of the largest cybersecurity companies in the world.

According to Global News, “the reason for the outage is a single software update originating from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The faulty update has caused some computers running Windows to experience the Blue Screen of Death. In other words, instead of booting up as normal, affected computers are crashing. The update did not impact computers running Mac or Linux.”

However, the University of Waterloo, thankfully, was unaffected. Kami Vaniea, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, says the shutdown “hit the airlines, it hit the railways…it hit large companies such as hospitals and other big groups that care about security and therefore invested in their safety by hiring a security company, namely CrowdStrike.”

Microsoft.com estimates that “CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than one percent of all Windows machines.”

What led to the outage?

Dr. Vaniea, a member of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute (CPI), said she believes at its core, the CrowdStrike outage happened because of two related issues that were not handled well: testing and update management.

Normally when popular software needs to be changed, the vendor creates an update, tests it, and releases it for other users to install. In large organizations, like airlines, a system administrator will first check new updates to make sure they will work as expected. Often, they will also perform a "staged deployment," which means they will update the least critical computers first, ensure everything is stable and then update the most critical devices.

Security tools, such as anti-virus, often bypass these tests when updating lists of “signatures” which are basically lists of ‘bad-thing’ patterns. Tests of such files are done by the security company, but typically not by client organizations because signatures are updated multiple times a day and are just lists, not computer code. It is also vital to block identified ‘bad things’ quickly; waiting for tests can be dangerous.

Prior to this particular outage, CrowdStrike issued an update that had an error no one knew about…Their internal testing should have caught the error, but it did not, and professor Vaniea says, “We don't know why yet…” The error only happens under very special circumstances, that in theory, should never occur. But on Friday, July 19, CrowdStrike published a configuration file that caused those special circumstances which was automatically downloaded by all computers running their software, bypassing all testing normally done by system administrators. The combination of the old error no one had noticed, and the new configuration file, caused a problem in how Windows boots up.

How do people and companies impacted move forward?

Typically, issues caused by errors are fixed quickly and the public only experiences a downtime of a few hours. To illustrate, Facebook experienced a mass outage back in October 2021, but their team was able to rectify the problem in less than seven hours as reported by The Verge. However, the CrowdStrike issue is taking days to fix because system administrators must manually remove the problematic configuration file from every single device affected. The good news is that most employees with a computer science based education are able to execute this solution, and the majority of the companies impacted by the outage will have a dedicated team and sufficient resources to roll out the repair plan. However, visiting and fixing every computer still takes time.

Read the full story on the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute website.

Supports available for Bangladeshi community

Curzon Hall at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh.

A message from Pam Charbonneau, Director, Student Success Office.

We are aware of the distressing events in Bangladesh, where peaceful student-led protests against the recently reinstated government job quotas have escalated into violence resulting in casualties, government-sanctioned curfews and disruptions to internet and cellular services.

These events may have caused concern and anxiety amongst the Bangladeshi community at Waterloo. To support impacted students during this time the Student Success Office has reached out to Bangladeshi students to offer support. If you support or work with people from, or with ties to, Bangladesh, we ask that you also check in with them, particularly those you may not have heard from.

The Bangladeshi Graduate and Undergraduate Student Associations have shared this helpful resource which you can use to further understand how you can support the Bangladeshi community: 5 ways you can support.

To our Bangladeshi community:

We are thinking of you and your friends/family during this difficult time, and we sympathize with the pain and uncertainty you may be experiencing. Please know that you are not alone as you navigate these events — our University community is here to provide you with the support you may need. The following resources are available to students, and I encourage you to use them: 

Campus Wellness resources  

• Pre-recorded seminars and workshops, including coping skills and stress management; and 
• Counselling Services can provide support in processing this negative news and its impacts. Confidential one-on-one appointments are available. Those out of the province, please contact EmpowerME.

Academic accommodations

Connect with AccessAbility Services if you are experiencing impacts from trauma or if you have a known or unknown disability/condition/illness.

Program support  

If this situation has impacted your academic responsibilities and you require support navigating program policies, please connect with your undergraduate academic advisor or graduate program coordinator. 

Financial support

The University of Waterloo Emergency Loan Program offers financial support to students who are experiencing short-term financial difficulty:

• Undergraduate students through Student Awards and Financial Aid (SAFA)
• Graduate students through Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs (GSPA).

If you need help identifying or navigating areas of support, please book a 1:1 appointment with Cyntia Brătan,International Student Supports Specialist.

Community via student associations

If you are looking to be in community with other Bangladeshi students, we encourage you to connect with the following student clubs:

• Undergraduate students: Bengali Student Association
• Graduate students: Bangladeshi Graduate Students' Association - University of Waterloo
• UWaterloo graduates and postdocs: Bangladeshi Graduate Students' Association (BGSA) - University of Waterloo

Community support

• Here 24/7 - 1-844-437-3247 (available for immediate support)  
• Grand River Hospital - 519-749-4300 
• St. Mary's Hospital - 519-744-3311  
• Good2Talk - 1-866-925-5454 (available to all Ontario post-secondary students) 
• Talk Suicide Canada – 1-833-456-4566 or by text 45645  
• Empower Me: to access create an account on the Dialogue mobile app or on the web at www.studentcare.ca/dialogue 
• Review a list of third party mental health and wellness apps on the International Student Guide

Look out employers, here comes Gen Z, and other words of warning

"The Work-Learn Institute’s associate director, Dr. David Drewery, was recently a guest on the Globe and Mail’s Stress Test podcast entitled Look out employers: Here come Gen Z," says a note from Co-operative and Experiential Education (CEE). "In the podcast, Drewery presents research about how workplaces can adapt and make the most of their Gen Z workers. Think you know Gen Z? try out this quiz from CEE to test your knowledge."

The Wicked Problem of Precarity Symposium takes place today from12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the SLC Black & Gold Room. "This symposium will showcase the interdisciplinary teaching efforts of doctoral students from the Faculty of Health, Faculty of Environment, and Faculty of Arts in co-designing and co-teaching this course," says a note from the Teaching Innovation Incubator. "The showcase will also put a spotlight on the work of undergraduate students across the five faculties to collaboratively explore and address complex issues of precarity. Opening remarks will be provided along with fresh grazing platters and drinks. Remarks will be provided by course instructors, students, and academic leadership."

The Waterloo Institute for Complexity & Innovation (WICI) is hosting a WICI World Café and Social: Intro to Complex Systems event today from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in MC 4042. The event features a short introduction to systems thinking followed by a group networking and round table discussion .There is an optional post event social from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Grad House.

Shad Waterloo 2024 Open Day Exhibits go on display today from 1:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. in Conrad Grebel's Great Hall. The participants of the Shad Waterloo high school enrichment program are holding a public open house to share highlights of their experiences, including creative ideas they have come up with to tackle this year’s design project theme.

Campus Wellness is hosting the term's final installment of the NeuroMinds Collective for Students today from 2:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. "NeuroMinds is a safe haven where your neurodiversity is celebrated, understood, and supported," says a note from Campus Wellness. "We're a community of students who share diverse cognitive profiles, including ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, and more. Our aim is to build a tight-knit network where you can freely express your thoughts, concerns, and achievements in a judgment-free zone." The events are open to any and all self-identified neurodivergent UWaterloo students.