We have been receiving reports of a recent phishing email making it into University inboxes. The email claims to be from the Vice Chancellor and has the subject line “Professional Development Opportunity”.

It contains a PDF attachment that should not be opened.

We have provided a screenshot below:

Do not open this email or any attachments as it could damage your work and computer and may make your private details vulnerable.

If you are concerned about this email or other similar emails then please call ex.6262 or go to reading.ac.uk/it

If you are a member of staff whose students are reporting this to you we strongly recommend that they change their password via the https://password.reading.ac.uk website.

If you go to https://password.reading.ac.uk/reset/ you can reset your password; provided that you know your University Username, Student Number and PIN. These can be obtained by filling out the form at https://password.reading.ac.uk/reminder.

For tips on keeping yourself and your information safe online, visit the IT web page on Cyber Security.

We have been receiving reports of a recent phishing email making it into University inboxes. The email claims to be from a different University and uses parts of your email in the subject line.

It also contains a hyperlink that should not be clicked on.

We have provided a screenshot below:

These are similar to the emails we received last year that appear to have the same look and structure.

Do not open this email as it could damage your work and computer and may make your private details vulnerable.

If you are concerned about this email or other similar emails then please call ex.6262 or go to reading.ac.uk/it

If you are a member of staff whose students are reporting this to you we strongly recommend that they change their password via the https://password.reading.ac.uk website.

If you go to https://password.reading.ac.uk/reset/ you can reset your password; provided that you know your University Username, Student Number and PIN. These can be obtained by filling out the form at https://password.reading.ac.uk/reminder.

For tips on keeping yourself and your information safe online, visit the IT web page on Cyber Security.

URS and the Service Desk Counter are now open as usual.

Unfortunately, due to a gas leak, URS G15 and the Service Desk Counter is closed today.

The main IT Service Desk is open as usual if you need IT related assistance.

UPDATE: The services affected yesterday are now running as normal and are no longer considered ‘at risk’.

We will continue to monitor the services and are now working with the supplier to work on avoiding this issue in the future.

We will provide a review of the incident after meeting with the supplier of the storage that caused the problem. This will include further detail on the cause as well as how we will avoid it in the future.

UPDATE: All services are now be back up and running but are considered ‘at risk’.

This means the problem has been resolved but there is a still a small chance that the services could go back down.

We are continuing to work with the supplier tonight to find a solution to avoiding this problem in the future.

We predict the services stay running, however, as a precaution, you can save or download work from OneDrive for Business or store your work locally on your computer.

We will have a further update tomorrow morning to confirm the services are still running normally.

We are currently experiencing a problem with our online storage that is affecting the following IT services.

The services affected are:

• Websites
• Collaborative shares
• Mailman lists

We are working with the supplier of the storage and are both treating this as a priority.

We will update with more information as soon as possible. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

We have identified the root cause of the network issue to a bug that was only recently identified by our supplier. We have put in place mitigating measures following advice from our supplier until a patch is produced.

We would like to reassure everyone that the network is now operating normally.

We will review the incident internally and we have a meeting with the supplier later today to discuss the recent issues we have experience with their hardware.

Once again please accept our apologies for the inconvenience this incident has caused.

Services remain up and running but we are still investigating the root cause of the issue with the hardware that caused the problem.

We are currently working with the supplier and manufacturer of the hardware to investigate the cause.

Following on from our earlier message we will attempt to stabilise the network at 11:15 today. This should have no impact but there is a very slim chance that we may lose connectivity to the network.

We advise if possible to have a local copy of any work you need for this afternoon e.g. presentation material.

We have experienced a hardware failure to a part of our network. Although we have recovered some services we are still running at risk and cannot guarantee these services will remain available.

We are working with our suppliers to resolve the issue.

Please bear with us as we work to stabilise the network service. Once again we apologies for the inconvenience this has caused.

Overnight, the supplier has put in a fix and we are not currently seeing the underlining problems with Silver Storage and Unix home directories. However due recent stability issue we will be monitoring the system very closely.

We know of 10 users who are still having log in problems and will be contacting them individually.

This issue is only affecting logins to the Unix Research systems.

Please let us know if are having log in problems contact the IT Service Desk.

We are receiving reports of Unix home directories and Silver Research Data Storage having issues, causing people being unable to login to Academic Computing services.

The supplier of the service has identified that their problem is being caused by authentication issues. They are currently working on a fix and we will pass on any information as we get it.

We have already organised a meeting with the supplier based upon the previous issues, and this current issue will also be raised.

IT and the supplier will be working on this as a priority tonight and will provide an update tomorrow morning.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused.