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Online Services
Online Services Status
In order to provide you with timely news on the status of our online services, we will post any news about our systems status on this page. If you have questions about your account status, suspect a service outage, or have questions about missing email, you may contact yalefeedback@alumniconnections.com.
Network Solutions email service delays
Comcast Intermittent Email Interruption
Friday, October 5, 2007 Intermittent VYS delivery issues
March 23, 2006 Domains incorrectly identified as spam domains
July 18, 2005 Comcast Email Server Issues Status Update
July 7, 2005 Fraudulent Email Warning
June 1, 2005 Online Services Email Update
November 18, 2004 Comcast Outbound E-mail Server Issues
July 27, 2004 Fraudulent E-mail Warning
May 20 - 24 Email Forwarding Delays
Phishing E-mail warning
Fraudulent emails are being sent to Yale and AYA users falsely claiming that you need to verify your email account. These emails often appear to be sent from "EDU ACCOUNT UPGRADE TEAM"and have a subject such as "FINAL VERIFICATION OF YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT". They are false and are not being sent from Yale or the AYA. Please delete the message without replying to it.
"Phishing" is when email purporting to be from a legitimate source attempts to trick email recipients into volunteering their personal or credential-related information. These messages vary in content, but all claim to be from legitimate sources such as E-Bay, a financial institution or bank, PayPal, the IRS or a university computing-type group. An example of one such email can be viewed at the bottom of this message. If you receive such a message, you should treat it as spam and simply delete it.
Below is a sample of such an email:
------------begin forwarded email----------------------
Dear Email Account Owner,
This message is from educational messaging center to all our email account owners. We are currently upgrading our data base and e-mail account center. We are deleting all our edu email accounts to create more space for new accounts. To prevent your edu account from closing you will have to update it below so that we will know that it's a presently used account. We have been sending this notice to all our email account owners and this is the last notice/verification exercise. CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL IDENTITY BELOW
Email Username : .......... .....
EMAIL Password : ................
Date of Birth : .................
Country or Territory : ..........
Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his or her account within Seven days of receiving this warning will lose his or her
account permanently.
Thank you for using edu!
Warning Code:VX2G99AAJ
Thanks,
Edu Account Upgrade Team------------end forwarded email----------------------
Again, these emails are fraudulent and have not been sent by Yale or the AYA. Delete them and do not open any attachment. Your @aya.yale.edu email address is not at risk of being deleted. You can use the following rules of thumb when evaluating the legitimacy of an email:
- If you are requesting access to an online service we will ask questions to verify your identity, however, we do not send these messages unsolicited.
- When contacting you regarding your VYS account, our emails will be signed with a staff person's name and contact information.
- We will not send unsolicited attachments. (That is, we will only send attachments as follow up to an issue that you have initially brought to our attention.)
- Occasionally, we may direct you to a website that belongs to AYA or a trusted partner. The address would contain www.aya.yale.edu or www.alumniconnections.com/yale.
If you believe you might have revealed your personal login information for the Yale Online Alumni Community or have any further questeions, please contact us at aya@yale.edu.
March 11, 2008
Network Solutions email service delays
We have recently become aware of an issue regarding delays to VYS users forwarding to independent domains using Network Solution's email service. Network Solutions has an automatic system in place to detect high volume sending servers. At this time, they are delaying the delivery of email sent through @aya.yale.edu email servers as a result.
Our online partners are working with Network Solutions to resolve this issue and we will update this page when we have additional information.
January 2, 2008
Based on information provided by Network Solutions, this issue has been resolved. Please let us know if you are forwarding your VYS email to an email account hosted with Network Solutions and you are continuing to have difficulty receiving email that was sent to your VYS email forwarding address. You may contact us at aya@yale.edu or 203-432-1907.
January 4, 2008
Comcast Intermittent Email Delivery Issues
We are aware of an issue regarding intermittent, sometimes lengthy, delays to VYS users forwarding to Comcast.net email addresses. The issue stems from Comcast blocking one or more of the many email servers. The messages are held in our mail queue for later delivery when Comcast has cleared the server and are not usually returned to the sender.
Comcast is insistent that they do not have a way to permanently clear the servers used for email forwarding, however, our online partners continue to work with Comcast to resolve this issue permanently.
Please let us know when you are having difficulty receiving mail so that we can investigate the issue to ensure that Comcast removes the server block.
If you have experienced some of these delays and wish to change your destination email address, you may do so by logging into your account: click here.
If you do not recall your password, please click here.
If you are having difficulty changing your destination address, you may contact us at aya@yale.edu or 203-432-1907 and we would be happy to assist you.
Friday, October 5, 2007 Intermittent VYS delivery issues
On Friday, October 5, 2007 we received reports of a few intermittent delays and reported the issue to our online partners. Unfortunately, a different but similar issue slowed down mail delivery on Sunday but was corrected as of Monday late morning. The backlogged messages held in the mail queue during this time were delivered by the end of the day on Monday. Some messages were bounced back to the sender with an undeliverable message.
Our partners are taking preventative measures to make sure that this situation does not occur in the future. If you are experiencing additional delivery delays or failures please contact us at aya@yale.edu When sending your message, please provide us with any additional details (or copies of error messages).
March 23, 2006 Domains mistakenly identified as spam
In accordance with our ongoing attempts to increase spam protection on AYA email forwarding accounts, last night our email forwarding partner began blocking over 30,000 known spam domains. Unfortunately, our email forwarding partner inadvertently included a few valid domains in its list of known spam domains resulting in a brief interruption of service for alumni with email forwarding accounts that forward to those domains. The problem was resolved by 9:00 AM on March 24 and there should be no further disruptions of service. We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this issue.
July 18, 2005 Comcast Timeout Issue Status Update
Update to Comcast Outbound Email Server Issues. In the past several months, some VYS users whose email aliases forward to comcast accounts have complained of problems receiving messages. Comcast was able to duplicate the problem and determined the cause for the error to be a timeout issue, preventing the message from reaching the intended destination. This has been resolved and all testing has since yielded positive results. Harris has been in contact with some very senior Comcast officials, who will remain our points of contact should this problem persist. We thank you for your patience and persistence. If you are still experiencing mail delivery problems with Comcast, please let us know.
July 7, 2005 Fraudulent E-mail Warning
Fraudulent E-mail Warning
Fraudulent emails are being sent to AYA users falsely claiming to suspend a user's account. These emails often appear to be sent from admin@aya.yale.edu, have a subject such as "Your Account is Suspended for Security Reasons" or "Your password has been successfully updated" and carry an attachment. They are false and are not being sent from Yale or the AYA. Do NOT open the attachment, as it is likely a virus or other harmful payload. Delete the email and keep your anti-virus software up to date.
Below is a sample of such an email:
------------begin forwarded email----------------------
From: admin@aya.yale.edu
To: username@aya.yale.edu
Subject: Your Account is Suspended For Security ReasonsDear Aya Member,
We have temporarily suspended your email account username@aya.yale.edu.
This might be due to either of the following reasons:
1. A recent change in your personal information (i.e. change of address).
2. Submitting invalid information during the initial sign up process.
3. An inability to accurately verify your selected option of subscription due to an internal error within our processors.See the details to reactivate your Aya account.
Sincerely,The Aya Support Team
------------end forwarded email----------------------
Again, these emails are fraudulent and have not been sent by Yale or the AYA. Delete them and do not open any attachment. You can use the following rules of thumb when evaluating the legitimacy of an email:
- When contacting you regarding your VYS account, our emails will be signed with a staff person's name and contact information.
- We will not send unsolicited attachments. (That is, we will only send attachments as follow up to an issue that you have initially brought to our attention.)
- Occasionally, we may direct you to a website that belongs to AYA or a trusted partner. The address would contain www.aya.yale.edu or www.alumniconnections.com/yale.
For more information on viruses, junk mail, and your AYA account, please click here to refer to our June 1 bulletin or contact us at aya@yale.edu.
November 18, 2004 Comcast Outbound E-mail Server Issues
There are no systemic issues with the Virtual Yale Station e-mail forwarding service at this time. However, after reports of inconsistent delivery of e-mails to and from Comcast accounts, the AYA and our e-mail forwarding partners at Alumni Connections worked to diagnose the issue. We contacted Comcast within one day of the initial reports, and they have acknowledged that there have been some technical issues with one (or more) of their servers. This error at Comcast has interfered with their delivery of messages sent to @aya.yale.edu e-mail addresses. Alumni Connections has remained in contact with Comcast to help resolve this issue as quickly as possible and to try to get an update on the status of the issue. We will continue to provide any new information on the status of this issue, on this page, as it becomes available.
(November 18, 2004)
July 27, 2004 Fraudulent E-mail Warning
Variants of a new virus (W32.Mydoom.M@mm) are sending e-mails that appear to be from Yale and/or the AYA and suggest there is a problem or issue with your VYS/Lifelong E-mail account. The e-mails are signed by either "aya.yale.edu support team." or "yale.edu user support team." These e-mails have not been sent by anyone at Yale or the AYA.
The email suggests that your account has been sending out large amounts of spam/junk mail and that you should click on the attachment for instructions.
Do not open the attached file as that will spread the virus. Delete the message immediately, update your virus protection software, and run a virus scan.Following are some links that will provide more in depth information about current viruses:
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.mydoom.m@mm.html
http://lux.its.yale.edu/statpages/status_details.asp?Msg=4023
(July 27, 2004)
May 20 - 24 E-mail Forwarding Delays
May 20 - 24 E-mail Forwarding Delays [headline] It has been determined that some e-mails sent to Virtual Yale Station accounts between Thursday, May 20 and Monday, May 24, 2004 were significantly delayed. Our e-mail forwarding partners (Alumni Connections) are investigating the cause and scope of the delays.
Please note that current email is being delivered, though some mail from the weekend may still be backlogged. Information about the cause and status of the delayed e-mails will be posted to this page as soon as it becomes available. We apologize for any inconvenience these delays may have caused and thank you for your patience.
March 13, 2004 Service Outage
An unexpected interruption in our VYS email forwarding service occurred on the morning of Saturday, March 13 and continued through the morning of Monday, March 15. The disruption was due to the failure of a “domain name server” (DNS) and an associated notification and failsafe system that did not operate as programmed.
Much of the email sent to VYS addresses on Saturday and Sunday was simply stored and then delivered by Tuesday when the technicians brought the system back online.
Unfortunately, our service provider discovered on further investigation that a number of messages sent to VYS addresses on Saturday and Sunday were lost and cannot be recovered.
Alumni Connections, which serves over 200 university online communities, has already taken steps to ensure that such an event does not occur again, including upgrading and instituting a periodic testing protocol for their disaster-recovery and notification systems.
Tuesday, March 16, 2004, approx. 11:30 am (EST)
Email backlog cleared out, all queued messages delayed from outage have been delivered.Monday, March 15, 2004, approx. 9:30 am (EST)
VYS email forwarding outage resolved, delivery resumes and email backlog is queued for processing.Saturday, March 13, 2004, 7:49 am (EST)
VYS email forwarding outage begins
Fraudulent Email Warning
Variants of a new virus are sending e-mails that appear to be from Yale and suggest there is a problem or issue with your VYS/Lifelong E-mail account. The email suggests that your account will be disabled; that our servers will be unavailable; or that you need to reconfigure your e-mail forwarding account. None of these is true.
Do not open the attached file as that will spread the virus. Delete the message immediately, update your virus protection software, and run a virus scan.
More information is available from Yale ITS.
Questions
If you have questions or concerns about our online services, you can contact us at aya@yale.edu.
Other email resources
Spam FAQ
