/news-archive/tag/brian-keltch/ 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Fri, 24 Jun 2022 13:39:02 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 /news-archive/2022/06/24/internet-safety-tips/ Fri, 24 Jun 2022 13:39:02 +0000 /news/?p=81744 ... 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Chief Information Officer Provides Tips on How to Stay Safe Online]]> 鈥淭here are a lot of organized folks trying to attack us online,鈥� Keltch said. 鈥淎nyone can go on the dark web now and buy lists of identities and passwords that have been breached. The level of sophistication of the attackers has really risen in recent years. People need to be on their toes and aware of threats on the internet.鈥� The sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 brought the abrupt closure of many offices and workplaces that resulted in a shift to remote work for millions of Americans.聽 A 2022 report from the said that roughly six-in-ten U.S. workers who say their jobs can mainly be done from home (59 percent) are still working from home all or most of the time more than two years after the pandemic began. Keltch, who has more than 30 years of experience working in information technology, said that this new era of working remotely can lead to security risks when employees don鈥檛 take the proper security measures for their home devices. Those who work from home are especially vulnerable to sophisticated phishing attacks via email and texts that impersonate co-workers and bosses. 鈥淭hese attacks are no longer the 鈥楤anking request from a king in a foreign country鈥� email, but have become much more sophisticated and targeted,鈥� Keltch said. 鈥淚 might get a false email from my supervisor that tells me to purchase this software right away, and I need it tomorrow. If I didn鈥檛 validate it, I might go purchase it from an unknown provider or provide my account information. Knowing how to recognize and combat these phishing attacks is important.鈥� It can be hard for employees to identify these messages as false since they often come from someone they know, include the company鈥檚 logo and email addresses, and contain inside information that strangers shouldn鈥檛 know. 鈥淐yber criminals really count on what they call social engineering,鈥� Keltch said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 tricking individuals to provide information they shouldn鈥檛 provide or to allow something to be installed on their machine that shouldn鈥檛 be installed. They rely on connectedness. They study social media to understand who your boss is, who your friends are, and they use that information to gain your trust and try to take actions that will harm you.鈥� Keltch recommends several tips for how remote workers can protect themselves online:

1. Strengthen your password hygiene. The most important step you can take to protect yourself is to not use personal information in passwords and repeat passwords for account logins. Instead, use passphrases and a password manager to keep your login information more secure. If you are using the same passwords over and over, you are definitely putting yourself at risk. Hackers are constantly running algorithms trying to crack your passwords.
2. Secure your home devices by updating your computer鈥檚 operating system and set it to automatically accept security upgrades and patches, encrypt hard drives and other electronic storage devices, and use a virtual private network to encrypt data.
3. Harden your home鈥檚 WiFi network by making sure your WiFi router has a unique and non-default password and that you have enabled WiFi encryption. Regularly update your router鈥檚 firmware and install patches.

For those working on campus, Keltch recommends using 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock鈥檚 Google for Education suite and a virtual private network. People should not save their passwords to internet browsers since that information can be easily accessible. When in doubt about the authenticity of an email or text message, you should call that person directly to see if they sent the message. Another major concern for employers is ransomware attacks where hackers will lock a system, encrypt files, and demand a ransom payment in order to access the system again. The perpetrators of the ransomware attack often demand payment in cryptocurrency because it鈥檚 untraceable. Furthermore, ransomware attacks are hitting the education and healthcare industries hard nowadays, so university employees and students should be more aware of the potential for these attacks. 鈥淥n campus, a big cyber threat is ransomware,鈥� Keltch said. 鈥淎 bad agent will attempt to get into our network, penetrate our firewalls, and lock us out of our databases. Imagine what it would be like if we didn鈥檛 have access to Banner or Boss. The hackers usually require payment in cryptocurrency because it鈥檚 untraceable. That鈥檚 happened to a couple of universities in Arkansas. 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock, like most聽 universities, protects themselves by backing up critical data at sites off campus in case of ransomware attacks.鈥� Today鈥檚 online world means students, faculty, and employees can work from anywhere, but it doesn鈥檛 mean that we have to put our data, information, and systems at risk. Following聽 these precautions, remote students and workers can be more confident in their remote security and shut the door to any hackers who might want to take advantage of them.]]> /news-archive/2022/04/27/keltch-new-chief-officer/ Wed, 27 Apr 2022 19:15:20 +0000 /news/?p=81449 ... Keltch Named New Chief Information Officer at 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock]]> 鈥淚 am pleased and honored to accept the position of chief information officer with a great passion for the campus, the position, and the entire Information Technology (IT) Services team,鈥� Keltch said. 鈥淥ur goals are many, including assuring our efforts in IT Services are aligned with tangible campus outcomes, increasing the visibility of IT governance on campus, fully leveraging Workday tools, driving a successful Workday Student implementation, and to continue our infrastructure upgrades, security hardening, and modernization on campus.鈥� Keltch currently serves 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock as the deputy chief information officer, director of enterprise applications and development, and as an adjunct instructor in the Department of Computer Science. 鈥溙切腣log传媒 Little Rock is very fortunate to be able to promote Brian to this new role of increased responsibility,鈥� said Jerry Ganz, vice chancellor for finance and administration. 鈥淏rian knows our institution extremely well and is deeply committed to ensuring that our students, faculty, and staff have the best possible technology available to them as they navigate their daily work.鈥� In his new role as chief information officer, Keltch is responsible for all aspects of the university鈥檚 information technology and systems. He will provide vision and leadership for developing and implementing information technology initiatives. Reporting to the vice chancellor for finance and administration, the chief information officer directs the planning and implementation of enterprise IT systems in support of the university’s mission to improve cost-effectiveness, service quality, and customer experience. 鈥淏rian brings a wealth of experience to his new role and will provide the continuity and stability that we need as we continue to transition to the new Workday ERP system,鈥� Ganz said. 鈥淚 look forward to working with Brian to ensure that Information Technology Services continues to meet the technology needs of our campus.鈥� Prior to joining 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock in 2016, Keltch worked as a program manager at Northrop Grumman in North Little Rock, where he was responsible for managing 130 staff members and the delivery of quality information technology products and services to the Arkansas Department of Human Services. Keltch holds a master鈥檚 degree in systems engineering and software engineering from Southern Methodist University and is pursuing a Ph.D. in integrated computing with a concentration in computer science from 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock.]]> /news-archive/2018/11/14/ua-little-rock-hosts-second-annual-3-minute-thesis-competition/ Wed, 14 Nov 2018 18:04:00 +0000 /news/?p=72674 ... 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock hosts second annual 3 Minute Thesis Competition]]> Mechanical and materials engineering student Ali Abdulhussein won 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock鈥檚 second annual 3 Minute Thesis, or 3MT, competition on Nov. 7. 3MT is a competition for doctoral students branded by the University of Queensland in Australia. It challenges students to summarize and present their doctoral research in a short, three-minute 鈥渆levator speech.鈥� Competitions have been held at colleges and universities around the world. Winners receive scholarship awards, with cash values of $400 for first place, $300 for runner-up, and $200 for the people鈥檚 choice award, awarded by audience vote. This year鈥檚 competition was won by Ali Abdulhussein, with Diamond McGehee as the runner-up and Brian Keltch being awarded the people鈥檚 choice award. Other students who participated were Sudha Shanmugam, Evan Xiaowei Liu, Wei Dai, Ujwani Nukala, and Dileen Abdulqader. Abdulhussein, an international student from Iraq, designed an absorbent block with the specific purpose of cleaning up oil spills. The block is made from cheap materials, can be easily manufactured on a large scale, and preserves the absorbed oil so that it may be used again. 鈥淥il spills are very bad for the environment,鈥� Abdulhussein said. 鈥淭hey are also very expensive to clean up, and it鈥檚 difficult to even do that without harming the environment around them. For this project in particular, I kept the 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico in mind and how difficult it was to clean,鈥� Abdulhussein explained. Abdulhussein credits his advisor, Dr. Alexandru Biris of 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock鈥檚 Center for Integrative Nanotechnology Sciences, for both encouraging him to take part in the competition as well as for his contributions to his project. 鈥淒r. Biris is one of the top scientists in Arkansas, and I鈥檓 very fortunate to be able to work with him,鈥� Abdulhussein said. “There was lots of hard work and even some suffering to get here, but I鈥檓 excited that the judges here enjoyed it and I鈥檓 looking forward to continuing this research and taking what I鈥檝e learned here back to my home country.鈥� McGehee, an applied science major from Magnet Cove, took on both the issue of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), as well as the daunting task of growing food for long voyages, using a hypothetical journey to Mars as a basis. 鈥淲hen I started my research, I knew I wanted to do anything involving plants,鈥� McGehee said. 鈥淚 initially wanted to take a different route, but I received a very generous amount of funding from the Arkansas Space Grant Consortium and that got me interested in all the science that goes into space travel.鈥� McGehee鈥檚 research, which focuses on using carbon nanotubes to create hardier and faster growing fruits and vegetables, was also influenced by the growing movement against GMOs. 鈥淲e have the ability already to genetically modify foods for long voyages like one to Mars would be. But some people don鈥檛 like that idea, and with nanotubes you can achieve a similar result without actually genetically modifying anything,鈥� McGehee said. Keltch, a computer science major from Little Rock and a career software developer, brought his many years of experience into his research. His project focuses on software that 鈥渢alks back鈥� to both its users and programmers and communicates in easy-to-understand and more 鈥渉uman鈥� terms. 鈥淚n my 25 years in software developing, it鈥檚 always amazed me how much effort goes into it yet how often it鈥檚 a failure,鈥� Keltch said. 鈥淭his project more than anything else is really about the importance of software evolution and prolonging that once we get there.鈥� ]]>