News

IT Update

Jul 12, 2016

Posted in: Uncategorized

By Gareth Griffiths

In May 2016, 48 new Work Orders were received into Track-IT. Of these, 45 are now closed (94% completion rate). Overall, we closed 67 Work Orders in the month. There are currently 40 open Work Orders. Please email support@gdins.org or call any member of the IT Team if you have an IT-related question.

Ransomware

A new worrying trend in the world of viruses has recently been experienced. This is ransomware; a type of malware (malicious software) that can be covertly installed on a computer without knowledge or intention of the user. Ransomware restricts access to the infected computer and demands that the user pay a ransom before removing the restriction. Recently, there were media reports of a Canadian educational institute being hit by ransomware, and that they paid ransom.

We have procedures in place to help combat such an attack (such as virus protection, firewalls, backups, and monitoring systems) but need everyone to help to keep this issue at bay. As with phishing and other email borne viruses, one method of infection is via email attachments. Please be vigilant on opening attachments received. If anything looks suspicious on an email received, please inform IT immediately and don’t open the attachment or click on a link.

Backups

The rolling out of the Institute’s new backup strategy is ongoing. The strategy incorporates backup devices from a company called Datto. These devices backup automatically onsite first, then synchronize to an offsite data location in Canada (to the cloud, as they say).

There are some neat benefits to these. Firstly in the event of a server failure, the backed up image can be run virtually from the device itself, meaning minimal disruption to server processes. If running from the local device is not possible, the offsite image can be loaded remotely, or exported to virtual files to be loaded on a VMWare Server in another location. The system may also be restored using a USB disk.

Please note that backups are important in ensuring that no data is lost. Any data stored outside of the shared drives (H:, S:, P:, etc.) is at risk of not being backed up. Please talk to IT regarding your backup options and what we can do to help you.

Website

Overall, there were 27,197 page views over 8,040 sessions (62% of there were new visitors) in May 2016. The website homepage saw 4,813 page views (3,933 unique page views). Some highlights of activity include: 18% of visitors to the home page, 29% clicked on What We Offer, 12% searched for information, and 12% scrolled through the News and Events sections.

Social Media Summary

Following are some brief stats from our social media channels in May 2016.

Facebook: Total number of people liking the page grew by 31 to 1,425. Total number engagements (number of links clicked, likes, or comments) was 1,687 over seven posts. Total reach of posts (number of people that saw a post in their feed) was 23,990 with 45,823 impressions (number of times a GDI page appeared in others’ news feeds). The most popular post was the Security Officer Program ad for Buffalo Narrows, reaching 5,489 people with 683 post clicks, and 165 Likes, comments and shares.

Twitter: 42 tweets earned 28,500 impressions. There were 31 new followers, 41 mentions, and 928 profile visits. We currently have 720 followers.

Closing Thought

There’s a band called 1023MB. They don’t have any gigs yet.

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