After thousands of University of Memphis staff and students tried to change their passwords Friday following a hacking incident, many people encountered computer problems.
The massive attempts to change passwords followed an e-mail sent out by The University advising students and staff that The University's system had been breached by a hacker in another country. Although the hacker apparently was seeking storage space, University officials said everyone should change passwords for security reasons.
"The system did have some problems. The iAm.Memphis. edu server couldn't handle the volume," said Ann Harbor, director of client services. "There is no truth to it crashing."
According to Harbor, the server experienced hardware and configuration problems over the weekend.
Information Technology agreed with Harbor.
"We do know that it was hard to gain access to the system due to the volume of people trying to log onto it," Leslie Terrell, an information technology secretary.
With 22,000 computer accounts on campus, it is possible that the server would be overloaded.
"The system is designed to handle a certain number of users at one time," said Tommy Towery, the local support provider for the College of Communication and Fine Arts.
"What happened was that we had three times the amount of users trying to gain access at one time," he said.
Harbor said that the mass mailing regarding changing e-mail passwords could have been handled better.
"We could have staggered the mass e-mail or sent it out to smaller groups of people," she said.
Computer users who changed their e-mail passwords, especially those who used card swipes, between Friday and Monday experienced problems even after resetting their passwords.
"Some people tried to change their old e-mail password and when they went to use the new one, it was not accepted," Towery said.
Usually, once the universal user ID (UUID) and password are typed on The U of M's Post Office Web site, a person's inbox is immediately displayed. Since Friday, the inbox has been taking a longer time to load.
Lindsey Lippner, who works as a computer lab attendant in the McWherter computer lab, said that she did not notice anyone having those problems.
"I've only been on duty for about 45 minutes today and so far students have been able to use either the card swipe or iAM.Memphis.edu without any problems," she said.
As previously reported, resetting The University password can be done one of two ways.
People can either go to iAM.memphis.edu on their computers or they use any of the card swipe machines at McWherter and Smith 24-hour computer labs, Dunn computer lab or at the IT Service Center in room 124 of the Administration building.
However, if a card swipe is used to change an e-mail password, users should be aware that that password is temporary. It should be changed via iAM.Memphis.edu as soon as possible as iAM.Memphis.edu passwords require both letters and numbers or characters, whereas the card swipe password does not.
"It's an added measure of security," Towery said.
What was previously not reported is that there is a third way to reset a password, using the regular postal system.
"The 'mail method' is mainly for the distance learners, students who are taking online classes from locations around the world," said Towery.
As security against hacking is being implemented by the IT department at The University of Memphis, it is recommended that computer users implement security measures of their own.
"Computer users that save passwords on their own computers should change their passwords, especially their U of M password, as soon as possible," said Towery.
Another thing Towery said that computer users on campus can do to protect themselves from hackers is to change their e-mail password every two to three months.
