UB’s central exchange email web access method—exchowa.buffalo.edu—has been the target of intense hacking in recent days, compromising a handful of accounts and sending huge amounts of spam emails from UB’s system.

To prevent hackers using intrusion scripts from gaining access to UB’s email system, UBIT has implemented CAPTCHA on the web interface.

CAPTCHA, according to IT policy and communications officer Rick Lesniak, is a challenge-response test that ensures that the response is generated by a human being. The CAPTCHA process requires users to enter an additional set of randomly generated words that are difficult for scripts to decipher.

“This additional step will protect our email system from internet bots and provide an additional layer of security,” Lesniak says.

He notes that this change does not affect access to UB’s central exchange email using the Outlook clients, or other direct email clients—it affects only web access to the central exchange email using exchowa.buffalo.edu.

Similarly, this change does not affect the UBmail.buffalo.edu web interface to UBmail.

Those with questions about using the CAPTCHA interface should contact the UBIT Help Center at ubithelp@buffalo.edu or 645-3542.

Concerns about this change should be directed to cit-feedback@buffalo.edu.