Day to day activities

Each year DTS carries out a short survey to make sure we are fulfilling our role in supporting the University staff and their digital requirements.

Further to the launch of the annual DTS Survey at the end of last week, please find the link to this year’s Survey. In this year’s short survey, we hope to get an idea of what other things staff members would like from their DTS department, whilst gaining an idea of how we are performing in day to day support tasks.

Previous years’ feedback has allowed us to implement the popular Teaching and Learning priority phone line for those calling from teaching and learning environments, the new IT Status Hub, the implementation of a new phone system due in January, increased resourcing for Mac support and a campus-wide Wi-Fi refresh amongst other initiatives.

With the feedback received this year, we plan to use this input to implement further improvements as well as hosting roadshows, focus groups and workshops to allow you to help shape our way forward. Further details of this will be shared via the DTS website shortly.

The survey will remain open until the Christmas break, please encourage your colleagues to respond. We look forward to your responses and sharing the findings in the future.

Viva Learning can now be found within student and staff Microsoft Teams.

Viva Learning creates a central hub for learning in Teams where people can share, recommend, and learn from content libraries across an organization to empower teams and individuals to make learning a natural part of their day. This includes access to content libraries from LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, Microsoft 365 Training, and third-party content providers and learning management systems.

Guidance on getting started with Viva Learning and other how to documentation can be found here.

Digital Technology Services will be moving from Sophos antivirus protection to Microsoft Defender ATP from this month.

Microsoft Defender ATP will be automatically installed on your device and Sophos automatically uninstalled, all new devices and updated devices will no longer have Sophos installed as standard.

We have compiled some FAQs below, please check these before contacting the IT Service Desk.

Antivirus Transition: Frequently Asked Questions

You can also open Add or Remove Programs on your device and browse the list of installed programs to confirm that it has been removed.

You may see Sophos and Windows Security both installed on your device at the same time, this is fine and will be the case until Sophos is removed. At this point, Windows Security will take over.

What about Mac or Linux?

This information is currently for Windows only. Work is being undertaken for Mac and Linux and updates will follow.

How does Microsoft Defender ATP differ from Windows Defender?

Microsoft Defender ATP is actually two products in one. It includes Windows Defender, Microsoft’s antivirus solution that is included with recent versions of the Windows operating system. It also includes ATP, which is a cloud-based enterprise security solution that builds on Defender’s antivirus features and enhances its capabilities for managed computers.

Microsoft Defender ATP also provides antivirus services to macOS-based Apple devices when deployed with our installation package. Computers that are transitioned to Microsoft Defender ATP become centrally managed in order to take advantage of the features provided by this solution. The process of transitioning University-owned devices to Microsoft Defender ATP is not automatic, but it can be automated by Digital Technology Services.

Why do I see a yellow warning icon when I check my Windows Security settings?

Until the rollout is completed, the Microsoft Defender ATP icon may not always have a Green tick. A review of the non-AV features that represent many of these messages is currently in progress.

Printing Update from University Windows Devices

Thank you for your patience whilst we have identified the next steps in carrying out Microsoft’s resolution.

We are pleased to confirm Microsoft have now made the vital security patches available and have provided information on other required security settings in order to resolve their printing issue.

Whilst we continue to ensure the safety of the University community, printing will only be re-enabled on devices that have the patches installed. We will be routinely running a report to check these and enabling printing for those that have done so. It is vital to ensure your device is patched.

What do you need to do?

Please take a look at this knowledge item in our self service portal https://uor.topdesk.net/tas/public/ssp/content/detail/knowledgeitem?unid=85fada60215f4521acd48954c3d546e4

The University’s VPN will be unavailable on Tuesday 7 September, from 18:00 for approximately one hour for essential maintenance.

This essential work will mean that our VPN will be unavailable during this time. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause and remember to save any work and log out prior to this change.

Please see hints and tips for using the University’s VPN on the DTS blog.

If you have any further questions or concerns please contact DTS on dts@reading.ac.uk or use the Self Service Portal on reading.ac.uk/dts.

The University’s VPN will be unavailable on Thursday 19 August, from 18:00 for approximately two hours for essential maintenance.

This essential work will mean that our VPN will be unavailable during this time. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause and remember to save any work and log out prior to this change.

Please see hints and tips for using the University’s VPN on the DTS blog.

If you have any further questions or concerns please contact DTS on dts@reading.ac.uk or use the Self Service Portal on reading.ac.uk/dts.

Eduroam: removal of TLS 1.1 protocol

What is TLS 1.1?

TLS is a method of encrypting data that “scrambles” data from one service to another, meaning any attempts to “read” it during the movement of the data are stopped.

Sometimes referred to as SSL,  TLS provides a means of keeping data safe, often used in financial systems but really anything that requires keeping secure. TLS 1.1 has been retired.

What’s happening?

In order to ensure the security of the University’s systems and services, we will be disabling the TLS 1.1 protocol on the eduroam Wi-Fi service on 31 August 2021. This change will affect any older devices that are not able to support TLS 1.2, including computers running Windows 7 and mobile devices running older versions of iOS and Android.

The TLS 1.1 protocol is not as secure as the newer TLS 1.2 and is no longer supported for connections to many services, including Microsoft’s Office 365. As Windows 7 is no longer supported by Microsoft since January 2020, security patches are no longer available, and we advise that anyone using Windows 7 upgrades to Windows 10.

For instructions on updating your settings, please see this helpful guide.

We are pleased to confirm Microsoft have now made the vital security patches available and have provided information on other required security settings in order to resolve their printing issue.

Whilst we continue to ensure the safety of the University community, printing will only be re-enabled on devices that have the patches installed. We will be routinely running a report to check these and enabling printing for those that have done so. It is vital to ensure your device is patched.

What do you need to do?

• Staff working remotely via a UoR device purchased prior to March 2020:

You must connect to the University’s VPN and run all software and security updates pending in the Software Center, instructions can be found on our Self Service Portal. Because of the number of connections to the VPN expected, we would recommend that you connect and run these updates at the end of your working day. Please remember to disconnect from the VPN after you have completed the updates and restart your device.

• Staff working remotely via a UoR device purchased between March 2020 and March 2021:

These devices do not have the University image yet, and you will be contacted directly regarding this. In the meantime, please follow the instructions on our Self Service Portal to check for and run the required security updates.

• Staff working remotely via a UoR device purchased after March 2021:

The updates will have been automatically deployed to these devices and when the patches are verified, we will re-enable this printing.

• On-campus staff devices, PC labs, student printing etc:

This fix has already begun to be pushed out to all University PCs that are switched on and are on the network, and these will be forced to restart to allow the patch to work. We have also carried out some additional security checks, and when the patches are verified, we will re-enable this printing.

Our technical teams are visiting PCs in the Library, teaching and learning rooms and PC labs to ensure these are up to date.

Once your device has the correct security settings, you will need to restart. Please note that from updating, any changes to your printing permissions can take up to 12 hours to take effect.

Printing hubs will remain available, but please be aware that the Library hub will be closed from the end of Friday 30 July to make way for Clearing. The hubs at London Road and Greenland campuses will continue to operate.

Why keeping your device updated is so important

DTS regularly recommend routinely connecting to the University’s VPN when working off campus to allow vital security updates and configurations to be made to your device. This incident affecting Microsoft’s printing services has shown how important it is to ensure you routinely check Software Center and install any updates for your device.

The University’s Mobile Device Management Policy states “University staff issued with a University of Reading owned mobile device shall ensure software updates and patches are installed as soon as practicable to do so to help ensure your device remains compliant. It is the responsibility of the user to ensure that all software installed on the device remains patched and up-to-date.”

The University’s Patch Management Policy can be viewed here.

If you have any issues updating your security settings, please log a ticket directly with the IT Service Desk via the Portal, including the Hostname of your device, where possible.

We are planning to copy the remaining content from home drives (N:drive) to OneDrive for Business between 30^th July and 27^th August (with the exception of Clearing Week). We are working in batches so every individual will receive an advisory email with their specific date a week before, and we will send out a reminder the day before.

You should allow 24 hours for the migration, with the N: drive being switched to read-only at 9am, and files being available on OneDrive by 9am the following morning. You should copy any files locally which you need to access during this period. Once we are certain there have been no issues, the home drive for that user will be moved into archive storage (retrievable via a ticket to the IT Service Desk).

FAQs have been updated: https://www.reading.ac.uk/digital-technology-services/service-catalogue/onedrive/home%20drive%20faqs

Any questions? UoR-HomeDrives-OneDrive@reading.ac.uk

Further to our update on Friday, we are still awaiting Microsoft’s fix for their critical vulnerability issue and as such general printing from University devices and UoR devices at home will continue to remain unavailable.

As advised on Friday, there are a number of Printing Hubs available on all three of our campuses for urgent staff and student printing requirements.

Printing is now available via PCs* located at the following locations:

• Whiteknights Campus: 1^st Floor, University Library, near the IT Service Desk Counter. Please note that all Library access must be pre-booked as per the Covid-19 Code of Conduct, and bookings can be made here: www.reading.ac.uk/booksd or via the DTS homepage. Please choose “DTS Printing” from the drop down menu.
• London Road Campus: L16 IoE staff hotdesk room – L16 105, no bookings required
• Greenlands Campus: GRN Quiet Study Space, no bookings required

*In order to print, you will need to log into these Printing Hub PCs with your University username and password.

If you have a critical business requirement for printing, please continue to escalate these to the IT Service Desk citing this email. They will be able to escalate this appropriately for you. Our teams have been working incredibly hard to respond to business critical requests across the whole University, and in implementing vital workarounds

We will meet again to review this decision on Monday and will provide further updates then, unless we have any developments before then. Once again, please accept our thanks for your ongoing patience.