System Status Updates

Nov. 10: 1:55 p.m.

Employee message

Yesterday, ITS was able to restore access to both Onbase and Banner Document Manager (BDM), and this morning we confirmed that the PaperCut printing software/server used by students is operational on the Middletown campus. We are prioritizing PaperCut access for the Newburgh campus and hope to have it restored next week.

Additionally, the Facilities staff is once again able to control our HVAC systems. I will share yet another reminder about preparing for Monday’s password reset.

Thanks again for your patience and understanding. Our work continues as we attempt to bring all services back online.

Leland Hach Jr. (CIO)

Student message

Today, ITS was able to restore access to the PaperCut printing software/server on the Middletown campus, meaning you should be able to print again from on-campus computer stations. We are prioritizing PaperCut access for the Newburgh campus and hope to have it restored next week.

I also want to remind you once again about preparing for Monday’s password reset by thinking of a password, or better yet a pass phrase, so you have something in mind when prompted.

Thanks again for your patience and understanding. Our work continues as we attempt to bring all services back online.

Leland Hach Jr. (CIO)

Nov. 8: 2:10 p.m.

As we have communicated our restoration progress over the past two weeks, we’ve cautioned that access to the shared drives would take time. Today, I’m happy to report we have reestablished access to the shared drives (H, S and P) sooner than anticipated, thanks to the work of the ITS team. We were able to restore all data as of Oct. 22. Our service interruption occurred on Oct. 23, so fortunately the loss of files should be minimized.

Over the past 24 hours, we have restored access to the following: Evisions/Intellichek, AutoCad/AutoDesk, OpenDental, Augusoft Lumens; Microsoft Identity Management, and 25Live.

Today we are working on restoring Onbase, Banner Document Management and PaperCut (for student printing).

I also recommend that you begin planning for Monday’s password reset by thinking of a password, or better yet a pass phrase, so you have something in mind when prompted. I have been asked about changing passwords now. It is not necessary because of Monday’s forced reset, but if you feel more comfortable changing it now, you can easily do so but you will be required to complete Monday’s forced reset, regardless.

Leland Hach Jr. (CIO)

Nov. 7: 1:30 p.m.

Employee message

I am able to announce that access to the Cognos reporting tool has been restored and the ITS staff has begun working on bringing back Onbase and our identity management system. Simultaneously, we are prioritizing establishing access to the shared drives and the Banner Document Management module.

I want to again caution everyone that due to the vast amounts of data that reside on our combined shared drives, that process will take some time, but we understand that many members of the College community rely upon those extensively and so we have moved it up on our priority list.

We are also planning to initiate a College-wide (employees and students) forced reset of passwords beginning first thing Monday morning (Nov. 13). This will help us further strengthen our network. You will be automatically prompted to reset your password the first time that you log on to MySUNYOrange as of Monday morning. New passwords will need to be at least 12 characters in length, and ITS recommends considering a pass phrase rather than a password (an example might be “UncleBob1sCool”).

Keep in mind that new passwords will apply to network access and your College-issued laptop or desktop. If you complete the process from off-campus, you will need to continue to use your previous password to access the device until you can return to campus. The next time you access your device on campus, you will need to use your previous password one last time to access the device and then once you get on to the network, your new password will automatically transfer to your device. As always, contact the Help Desk if you encounter any issues.

Leland Hach Jr. (CIO)

Student message

As the College continues returning systems to working order following our recent service interruption, we are also planning to initiate a College-wide (employees and students) forced reset of passwords beginning first thing Monday morning (Nov. 13). This will help us further strengthen our network. You will be automatically prompted to reset your password the first time that you log on to MySUNYOrange as of Monday morning. New passwords will need to be at least 12 characters in length, and ITS recommends considering a pass phrase rather than a password. (an example might be “UncleBob1sCool”).

As always, contact the Help Desk if you encounter any issues.

We will be sending another reminder about the password reset later in the week.

Leland Hach Jr. (CIO)

Nov. 6: 9:46 a.m.

Some users are experiencing password and domain access issues this morning. I would like to start by reassuring you that this is a direct result of ITS rebuilding services over the weekend. Essentially, since we reset to a previous version of settings, some passwords are not being recognized as people try to log in.

If you are experiencing this issue, please contact the Help Desk. To fix this, we need to send a tech to your workstation to reestablish the updated settings.

Leland Hach Jr. (CIO)

Nov. 2: 12:35 p.m.

Employee Update

I’m writing to share that the ITS team has restored access to Banner Admin today. Employees who use Banner Admin can now access the software from wired network connections on campus. All external VPN access continues to be offline, meaning you are currently unable to connect to Banner Admin remotely. If there is a need to access Banner Admin from campus wifi, employees must have their supervisor request such access from ITS and we’ll evaluate those situations on a case-by-case basis.

Our overall investigation remains ongoing, but ITS has moved into the next phase of restoration, having identified services and/or servers that are next in line to become operational. I will continue to caution that rebuilding shared drive access is a longer-term process. Changes will be coming to the wifi network, but for now continue to use “SUNYOrangeGuests”.

Future updates will follow via email as needed.

Leland Hach Jr. (CIO)

Student Update

I’m writing to share that the ITS team has recently restored on-campus access to Degree Works, the degree audit and advising tool that shows your progress toward completing your academic degree requirements. Degree Works has been accessible from off campus, but now is available on campus.

We hope this restoration is helpful as you prepare for Spring semester registration that begins on Monday, Nov. 6. I also will remind you that wifi access is available through the “SUNYOrangeGuests” network.

Our investigations continue and future updates will follow via email as needed.

Leland Hach Jr. (CIO)

Nov. 1: 1:25 p.m.

Over the past two days, since our most recent College-wide update on Monday, our investigation has been progressing as expected and we have been making inroads into greater restoration of services. We are learning things from the investigation that are giving us a greater level of confidence that we can open access to some systems sooner than we originally may have planned.

I anticipate that over the next 24-48 hours, we’ll be able to restore Banner Admin access, which will bring back some key platforms prior to the weekend.

I caution everyone that we still have a long way to go in some aspects, including restoring access to the shared drives. However, as you’ve seen with the return of Single Sign On authentication, Banner SSB access and the return of wifi, we are gradually restoring those services as we go, being sure that we can do so safely and effectively.

I’d like to acknowledge the work of the entire ITS team in managing our technology response and attacking the work necessary to develop solutions to the issues we’ve been facing. The team has risen to the challenge. We continue to appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding within the College community.

Future updates will follow via email as needed, and are also available at https://sunyorange.edu/statusupdates/index.html.

Leland Hach Jr. (CIO)

Oct. 30: 12:50 p.m.

Within the past half hour, the ITS team has opened the “SUNYOrangeGuests” network to provide on-campus wifi. The “SUNYOrangeGuests” network will allow access to the internet and available online services. There is no password requirement at this time, however the network does require multi-factor authentication.

Leland Hach Jr. (CIO)

Oct. 30: Noon

Employee Update

The College’s progress toward restoring services for employees and students continues on many fronts, but we are able to announce that we have restored on-campus access to Self-Service Banner. As I communicated last week, access to shared drives and Banner Admin for employees remains turned off. There is no immediate timetable for bringing those items back online.

We are getting closer to a temporary solution that will provide on-campus wifi access. For students, until wifi is available, we continue to encourage the use of on-campus computer labs throughout both campuses.

As Dr. Young mentioned in her College-wide communication on Friday, we appreciate everyone’s patience as our investigation continues concurrently with our restoration efforts. We remain unable to provide definitive timelines for restoration of some critical services for employees. For employees who have a laptop they believe may have been impacted, please contact Help Desk (341-4749). We have been deploying laptops to those impacted, and will continue doing so.

Beginning with this update, we will no longer be sending text alerts to accompany the email notifications. And with the bulk of our outages impacting employees, we are segmenting our updates to streamline communications to students as needed, but will share the student messaging as part of our employee communications so you are aware of what information we are sharing with students.

Leland Hach Jr. (CIO)

Student Update

The College’s progress toward restoring services continues, but we are able to announce that we have resumed on-campus access to Banner. We are getting closer to a temporary solution that will provide on-campus wifi access. Until wifi is available, we continue to encourage you to utilize on-campus computer labs throughout both campuses.

We appreciate everyone’s patience as our investigation continues in conjunction with our restoration efforts. Please contact the Help Desk (341-4749) if you experience access issues or other technical problems you believe may be related to our current outages.

Leland Hach Jr. (CIO)

Oct. 26: 5:45 p.m.

The ITS team appreciates the patience of the entire College community as we work through resolving our ongoing service disruption. At this time, we can acknowledge that we experienced a cybersecurity event. Our investigation into the incident continues while we simultaneously work to restore access to services for both students and employees.

We are still attempting to restore on-campus connections to Self-Service Banner. Meanwhile, access to shared drives and Banner Admin for employees remains turned off. There is no immediate timetable for bringing those items back online.

On-campus wifi is also still turned off. However, we are prioritizing finding a temporary solution that will grant students on-campus wifi access. We encourage students to utilize on-campus computer labs throughout both campuses while the wifi is off.

We recognize that students and employees alike are eager to understand timelines for restoring services like wifi and shared drives, but until our investigation is complete, timelines are difficult to pin down. Like you, ITS is eager to make the College fully operational as soon as possible.

For employees who have a laptop they believe may have been impacted, please contact Help Desk (341-4749). If you have contacted the Help Desk with a ticket, we will be getting to you as quickly as possible. We have begun deploying laptops to those impacted, and will continue doing so in the coming days.

Leland Hach Jr. (CIO)

Oct. 25: 6:25 p.m.

The ITS team has made significant gains in restoring access to selected online systems today. Single Sign On authentication is now operational, which should give members of the College community access to MySUNYOrange, Brightspace, Orange Connect, Zoom and Gmail. Self-Service Banner is accessible from off campus only at this time. Tomorrow we will be prioritizing restoring on-campus access to SSB as well. Banner Admin is still not accessible for employees.

If you experience any connectivity issues related to the systems mentioned above, refresh your browser and try again. If that is unsuccessful, you can contact the Help Desk (341-4749) for assistance or to report any other technological issues you may encounter.

Access to on-campus wifi and shared drives remains turned off. There is no immediate timetable for bringing those items back online. It will likely be several days, or longer, until those return.

We can also confirm that internet access has been fully restored to the Newburgh campus following this morning’s outage.

Leland Hach Jr. (CIO)

Oct. 25: 11:20 a.m.

Our service outages from yesterday are still ongoing and the ITS team continues to work on resolving the problems.

The team’s primary focus today is to restore authentication services (which verify your identity as part of the Single Sign-on process) in order to provide students and employees with access to MySUNYOrange, Brightspace, Gmail, Zoom and other services. Restoring authentication won’t open access to all systems and shared drives however, but it will provide more consistent access to some critical services.

As mentioned yesterday, access remains “hit or miss” on many services, but reports to the Help Desk (341-4749) reveal that users seem to be having more success utilizing Microsoft Edge as a browser, compared to Firefox, Chrome and others. Wifi remains turned off for now.

At this moment, ITS is also working on an unrelated internet outage affecting the Newburgh campus. We are hopeful to have that restored soon.

Again, we appreciate your patience.

Leland Hach Jr. (CIO)

Oct. 24: 5:20 p.m.

SUNY Orange continues to be impacted by a service disruption that has required us, as we shared earlier this afternoon, to temporarily take certain computer systems offline. Our ITS staff continues to investigate and is working to restore our systems as quickly and as safely as possible. This incident has not impacted our ability to conduct classroom instruction.

What we have learned today is that access to some systems is “hit or miss”, meaning it is intermittent and inconsistent. There are too many variables that impact access at this point for us to share guaranteed methods or devices that can connect with services. We have turned off access to on-campus wifi as a precaution. We do not have a time frame for full restoration of our systems.

The College will be open and safely operational tomorrow (Wednesday, Oct. 25). Academic instruction will continue as scheduled, as will all events and activities. Employees should again discuss with their supervisor what work-related activities can be accomplished while services are inaccessible.

We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your continued patience and support. Updates will follow as more information is available.

Dr. Kristine Young (President)

Oct. 24: 12:10 p.m.

The College continues to experience widespread technical difficulties that are impacting some of our systems. At this point, nothing leads us to believe any data has been compromised. However, the ITS staff continues working to assess the extent of the situation, and to mitigate its impact.

As a precaution, ITS is in the process of shutting down servers and access to online services (MySUNYOrange, Gmail, Banner, Brightspace, Orange Connect, shared drives, etc.). Once those shutdowns occur, students and employees will no longer have access. The duration of the shutdown of services is still to be determined. The phone system will remain operational.

At this time, the College remains open and safely operational. Academic instruction will continue as scheduled, as will all events and activities. Employees should discuss with their supervisor what work-related activities can be accomplished while services are inaccessible.

Updates will follow as more information is available.

Dr. Kristine Young (President)

Oct. 24: 9:27 a.m.

The College is experiencing technical problems and connectivity issues affecting MySUNYOrange and other systems. These issues are impacting access to various online systems for both students and employees. The ITS staff is working to assess and resolve the issues as quickly as possible. More updates to follow as information becomes available.

Dr. Kristine Young (President)