News & Alerts

The Setting:Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday are all happening in the next week. Freshly recovered from their Thanksgiving food coma, people are logging on or heading out to take advantage of great deals on gifts for their kids, partners, friends, and family.

Since its rollout in November 2022, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has sparked widespread discussions about its potential impact on education and learning. Recognizing its growing use in academic settings, Pitt IT developed PittGPT, a version tailored specifically for the Pitt community.

Joseph Yun, a research professor of electrical engineering and an architect of PittGPT, said that the university did this because tech companies, like OpenAI, charge a large amount for their enterprise-designed versions.

After a lengthy delay, the Department of Defense published its final Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program rule on October 15, 2024. 

As Thanksgiving rolls around, it's natural to start reflecting on all the things we’re grateful for, including the tech that helps us get through life a little easier. Whether it’s powering through late-night study sessions, connecting with family and friends, or just saving time, some standout tools make being a student, faculty, or staff member at Pitt that much better.

It was revealed that 183,754,481 records belonging to Pure Incubation Ventures have been put up for sale on a hacking forum.

November is National Career Development Month, making it the perfect time to focus on building your professional skills and connections. As you reflect on your career, it’s important to adopt a holistic perspective.

On November 7, Federal Student Aid published guidance on access and use of PII from the FAFSA by universities and others.

This election season has been intense, sparking heightened conversations on campus and across social media platforms. While staying informed is important, protecting your mental health and well-being is equally essential.

At its monthly meeting on Oct. 28, the Senate Computing and Information Technology committee was briefed on a transition from one business intelligence report-writing tool to another as well as a pilot artificial-intelligence service being tailored for the Pitt community.

At the University of Pittsburgh and in technology, innovation is a way of life. Recently, Pitt IT partnered with the Office of Budget Operations (OBO) within the Controller’s Office to transform their annual Target Letter process, which establishes budget targets for each University unit.

Effective Saturday, Nov. 30, devices running macOS 12 (Monterey) will no longer be able to access University resources through PittNet VPN (Pulse Secure) or Global Protect VPN.

The US Justice Department hits Penn State University with a $1.25 million fine to settle allegations that it failed to adequately secure data tied to government contracts.

An AI hallucination is when an AI tool provides an incorrect answer. One of the biggest issues with AI hallucinations in cybersecurity is that the error can cause an organization to overlook a potential threat.

Phishing attacks can come in various forms—emails, texts, or social media messages. Click, respond, or otherwise give your personal information to hacker, and your system, data, and money are in big trouble. A successful phish can even give a bad actor access to Pitt systems and data, potentially risking the whole University and its students, faculty, staff, alumni, and partners! But you can stop phishing attempts before they can do you any harm. Learn to spot the signs of a phishing attack and know what to do if you get one.

Even with strong, unique passwords for every account — and let’s face it, many people just rotate through a handful of passwords while using standard security questions — hackers manage to break into people’s accounts. That's where Multifactor Authentication (MFA) steps in as your digital sidekick, adding an extra layer of security to protect your accounts.

Pitt Chancellor Joan Gabel and Carnegie Mellon University President Farnam Jahanian celebrated Pittsburgh’s role as an AI Tech Community by signing a ceremonial memorandum of understanding with NVIDIA at AI Horizons Pittsburgh on Oct. 14. The summit included keynote remarks from Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, discussing Pittsburgh’s global role in human-first AI innovation.

PeopleSoft and PeopleSoft/HighPoint Campus Experience (CX) will be unavailable during scheduled maintenance to the Student Information System taking place overnight from Saturday, Oct. 19, at 11 p.m. until Sunday, Oct. 20, at 7 a.m. The maintenance will be performed by the vendor, Sierra-Cedar.

The final program rule for the CMMC Program was released for public inspection on federalregister.gov and is anticipated to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, Oct. 15.

The cybersecurity industry is now seeing significant security gaps because of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

TeamDynamix, which includes Pitt Information Technology’s Services Portal and Knowledge Base at services.pitt.edu, as well as the TDAdmin, TDNext and TDClient services will unavailable from midnight to 4 a.m. ET on Saturday, Oct. 19, while the vendor (TeamDynamix) performs a system upgrade.

The Internet Archive, known for its expansive collection of digital content and historical web snapshots, suffered a significant data breach impacting a whopping 31 million users.

Providing a summary of recent OCR activity, Pitt's HIPAA compliance, and updates to the FERPA Policy.

One of the easiest ways to boost your cybersecurity is to keep your software and apps updated. Every day, developers are looking for clues that hackers are trying to break into their systems. They are searching for holes where cybercriminals could sneak in, even if they’ve never been breached before. They then release updates to fix these issues and keep the bad actors out. All you have to do is install the latest updates for your devices, software, and apps — including web browsers — to get the latest protections.

NVIDIA’s Joint Center with the University of Pittsburgh for AI and Intelligent Systems will focus on computational opportunities across the health sciences, including applications of AI in clinical medicine and biomanufacturing.