Announcements

A University-wide network outage is scheduled from midnight until 5 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 11, causing a complete loss of network connectivity during the maintenance window. The outage is required to provide additional hardware installation and greater resilience to University networks. This includes all campuses.

iTech will implement Single Sign On (SSO) for SOAR beginning Thursday, September 5.
 
This update follows the successful transition of SOARFIN and SOARHR to SSO. Users will continue to verify their identity using the Microsoft Authenticator app when prompted. Please note that you may need to modify any saved bookmarks for these systems.

Microsoft is implementing new storage limits for its academic customers, and, as a result, Southern Miss students, faculty, and staff will see changes to the available storage limits in their OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Group accounts.

Effective July 1, 2024, new limits for OneDrive for Business and Groups will go into effect.
OneDrive for Faculty and Staff: 50 GB
OneDrive for Students: 20 GB
Microsoft Groups: 50 GB

For those accounts and Groups that are currently using more than the new limitation, a limit above current utilization will be imposed to provide time to reduce usage.

To enhance security, iTech will deactivate the voice call MFA feature for all remaining users on Monday, June 17. This will reduce security risks and minimize verification request fatigue from malicious activities.

Most users already have Microsoft Authenticator and will not be affected by this change. For those who don’t have Microsoft Authenticator, follow these instructions to download and install it.

To enhance our security measures, iTech will deactivate the voice call MFA feature for users who already use Microsoft Authenticator for MFA on April 15, 2024. This step is taken to reduce security risks and minimize verification request fatigue from malicious activities. The majority of these users, already using Microsoft Authenticator, will not be affected by this change. Users that do not have the Microsoft Authenticator can follow these instructions and install the application for enhanced account security.  We acknowledge the challenges change may bring, yet prioritize your security. We plan to phase out the voice call option entirely in the future.

To protect sensitive information from unauthorized access or data breach, iTech will implement a Data Loss Prevention feature on June 1, 2023, to force the encryption of emails containing purchase card data, bank account numbers or Social Security numbers that are included in the body of or as an attachment to an email. Emails that include this data are generally not recommended due to the inherent risks associated with email transmission, including potential interception, hacking, or accidental disclosure.

Starting May 5, 2023, "number matching" will be enabled for all users who currently utilize the Microsoft Authenticator app for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). This feature helps to prevent accidental approvals and provides protection against multi-factor authentication attacks. With number matching enabled, the Microsoft Authenticator app will prompt users to enter a code to complete the authentication process to web applications and VPN connections. This change only applies to the use of the Microsoft Authenticator app. All other authentication processes will remain the same.

To learn more about this feature, go to Number Matching for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).