SUN FLOWER
the
Students set up tents in preparation for the last home basketball game Saturday | PAGE 3
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2016
VOLUME 120, ISSUE 46
THESUNFLOWER.COM
A phish in the water
Phishing attempts can be hard to avoid, detect, WSU officials say ANDREW LINNABARY
W
REPORTER
@linnabary
ichita State traffics 3.3 million emails a day to students, faculty and staff, but only 10 percent are valid, said David Wright, chief data officer at WSU. “That just tells you the magnitude of how we’re getting hit,” he said. “When you’re the police officer on the beat, you see everything is bad.” The most recent phishing attempt happened Monday when users were notified via email by WSU not to comply with a message asking users to increase their mailbox size. Rob Phillips, WSU’s manager of server support, explained that phishers “cast bait out” to electronically communicate their way into a system. Some steal graphics from the pages or sites they are posing as. Phillips said once a victim provides a password, the phisher sends out thousands of pieces of spam, posing as the victim’s account. A phisher’s main goal is to send out spam, but some are much more nefarious. A phisher may pose as a WSU staff member or other official and ask for social security numbers or other information, Wright said. He said the consequences of not being diligent online can jeopardize the institution. “We’ve become complicit in our day-to-day activities, largely because we’re so busy,” Wright said. He said it’s not just an issue for students. Faculty and staff make the same mistakes. A year ago an employee was working with a vendor to remodel their house, and the vendor wanted to verify that the employee’s credit card information was correct, Wright said. The vendor sent the employee’s credit card information to their
campus email. “Within an hour, that person had charges from Africa for airline tickets,” Wright said. Depending on a WSU employee’s level of access, a phisher may be able to add or drop students from classes, pull up academic records or view payroll and employment information, Wright said. WSU uses a 90-day password period, leading students, faculty and staff to use weak passwords, Wright said. Many reuse old passwords and change the number at the end of it. “The biggest mistake is reusing passwords. What can happen is if you accidentally give away your WSU password, and it’s also your banking password, then they may not have too hard of a time getting into your banking account,” Phillips said. Phillips said getting a password wallet that stores multiple passwords is good for creating stronger passwords that don’t need to be remembered. He recommends LastPass, which is free for general use. When making passwords, avoid using personal information. Many people tend to put their birthday or wedding date, Wright said. “People say, ‘I don’t have anything on my computer, what do I care if somebody gets in?’ Well, they want your IP address. They want to be able to attack other computers from your computer and make it look like it’s you, whether you have any valuable information on your machine or not. You’re providing them a vector to be able to attack others from,” Phillips said. For every gain, and the more people that become educated, new ways of getting personal information are devised, Wright said. “We lock our cars because we’re pretty much certain that they’re going to be stolen if we don’t, and yet we do not have the same attitude toward emails.”
Ten tips to prevent security breaches
1
Don’t give away your access. If a request wasn’t solicited by you, don’t assume that it’s legitimate.
2
Don’t reuse your passwords for every site.
3
Don’t use easy or simple passwords. They should have at least eight characters with a mix of upper and lower case characters, numbers and symbols.
4
Close the browser before you leave any computer.
5
Lock your computer when you walk away.
6
Don’t send banking or credit card information over email.
7
Don’t send your birthdate or social security number over email.
8
Don’t click on links in email. They could install malware on your machine that will steal your credentials.
9
Make certain that your operating system patching and antivirus software are up-to-date.
10 Don’t use public, unencrypted
Wi-Fi to access university systems without the use of a VPN.
Illustration by Jillian Clough
Discussion, dinner focuses on tolerance ROBERT HITE
REPORTER
@sunflowernews
In a discussion hosted by Wichita State’s Global Faith in Action, community members swapped bread and religious beliefs Tuesday at the dinner table for a Beyond Tolerance Dinner and Dialogue in an effort to create greater social harmony. Nine different groups of about 10 people met in private homes or at Wichita State to discuss issues of race and religion. Global Faith in Action held the faith dialogues for six years, and invited the Greater Ministerial League to co-sponsor the Beyond Tolerance movement dinner and dialogues. The Beyond Tolerance movement was created after a shooting June 17 at Emmanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, 21, a white man, pleaded not guilty to killing nine people during a Bible study in the basement of an historic church. Prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty. He also is charged with a hate crime, a federal offense, and obstructing religious practice, according to an Associated Press article. Maci Ward, a 2014 WSU alumnus, hosted one of the dialogues Tuesday night and, along with Tom Murrillo, served spaghetti, toast and salad for the main meal. “I want to have a good, honest discussion to create better understanding about each others’ beliefs and life perspectives and enjoy one another,” Ward said. A group moderator asked everyone to introduce themselves by name and give religious affiliations they might have. The group included a variety of religious affiliations, including Baptist, Catholic, Christian Scientist, Jewish, Mennonite, Methodist, Muslim, and an unaffiliated and a self-described “spiritual” person. Doris Weller, who brought homemade bread for dessert, identified herself as Jewish. “I grew up in a household where you didn’t trust people who were different than you,” she said. Weller said she now believes in treating people the way she would like to be treated. Ann Garvey said she has traveled around the world and summed up her expectations for the evening this way: “I think we are here to listen and learn.” Participants could answer questions on cards prepared in advance. Many of the questions focused on human dignity, tolerance and personal beliefs.
SEE DINNER • PAGE 5
Visiting printmaker plays on imagination, science MARISSA CAMPBELL
REPORTER
@soupitup13
In a series that has been continuing for about 30 years, Beauvais Lyons, print media artist and professor at the University of Tennessee, has been creating prints of fictional history. In his undergraduate program, Lyons documented and fabricated an imaginary culture by creating ceramic artifacts and prints to excavate the imagination. Since that project, Lyons has created work based off imaginary worlds in the form of artifacts, prints and stories. By drawing on inspiration from real archaeology, history and medicine, Lyons’s imaginary world is his attempt to make something look like viewers are at a history museum. “I want people to be confused,” he said. “I want for them to not know if it’s art or if it’s history, maybe science. I’m kind of like the wolf wearing the sheep’s clothing, kind of the trickster or prankster
playing with what we believe.” During his time at WSU, Lyons will work with students on a new series he is creating, give a lecture and have his work shown in the Clayton Staples Gallery. The gallery, located in Room 215 in McKnight Art Center, shows a rotation of contemporary artists, as well as master’s of fine arts and bachelor of fine art’s students. The gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and is free to everyone. ShockPress Collaborative — a print media class in the School of Art, Design and Creative Industries — holds a series of three visiting artist talks each semester since it was founded one year ago by Humberto Saenz, assistant professor of print media. “The main idea [of ShockPress] is to bring in visiting artists from around the nation and international artists to work with students to have an applied learning experience with a visiting artist,” Saenz said. “The students are able to work with the
Photo by Manny De Los Santos
Mock documentation artist Beauvais Lyons talks about contemporary artists who have mocked the authority of the academy Wednesday during the ShockPress Visiting Artist Talk. Lyons’s work explores various forms of academic parody, and is held in numerous public collections, including the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum.
artists, get their work critiqued by the artists and have their portfolios looked at to receive feedback for the professional world.” During his talk Wednesday at the Ulrich Museum of Art, Lyons spoke
about contemporary artists who mock authority through their different media, as well as his own works. His series being shown at WSU, “Envisioned Worlds: Lithographs from the Hokes Archives,”
uses various lithograph techniques, which are shown in his demonstrations to the students. “The lithographs here were made with techniques very similar to how 19th century and early 20th century lithographs were made,” Lyons said. “I’m often drawing one of the color runs from a stone and then there are other printing elements that come from various kinds of plates. The goal is to make it look like the historical form of the print.” Although Lyons’s work is considered fictional history, he said he tries to stay as historically accurate as possible. In his latest series about a circus, Lyons went as far as contacting the historical society to figure out where a circus would have occurred in Wichita in 1916. “I like doing these talks and workshops because I benefited immensely from visiting artists who did projects and print studios,” Lyons said. “It’s great to turn the studio into a space that involves both teaching and creative research.”