There are a number of phishing scams going around the Internet all the time. When a site like myUSI is undergoing a change, it can lead to confusion among the site’s users if they receive requests via email for sensitive personal information, username’s and passwords from seemingly trusted sources.

To be clear, any request for passwords, usernames, or sensitive personal information should be treated as a scam.

The myUSI support team will never ask for usernames, passwords, or sensitive personal information by email.

If receive these types of requests from seemingly trusted sources, do not respond to them. If you are concerned about them, and want to verify that they are indeed scams, you can contact the myUSI support team by email at myusi@usi.edu or by phone at 812.465.1070.

All myUSI sessions are designed to timeout automatically after 30 minutes of inactivity. The activity counter is reset ever time you click on something in order to perform some action or navigate within the myUSI site.

The time-out exists to help protect your privacy and security. It helps prevent situations where people accidentally remain logged into their myUSI sessions when they leave a public computer, such as in the labs or a library, opening themselves to having their account, and all their personal information, compromised by someone using the computer after they leave.

If you are finished with your session, please close your browser for security purposes. If you are not finished, simply log back into myUSI.

The “session timeout” message can also appear if you double-click during your myUSI session or use the Back browser button while under the Self Service tab instead of using its internal menus for navigation.

If you continue to get the session expired message, you may need to delete the cookies and cache (or offline files) from your web browser. Check your web browser’s help file for information on how to delete these temporary files.

You might also experience this problem when using an unsupported web browser while trying to access items under the Self Service tab. We maintain an updated list of browsers that are supported by myUSI.

How to go about finding your myUSI password depends on whether you are a USI student, faculty, employee, alumni, or parent of a USI student.

It is important to note that requests to have a password reset via email will NOT be honored.

Employees and Faculty:

If you are a faculty member or an employee of the university, you must visit (in person) the USI Computer Center located on the lower level of the Orr Building.

Please bring a form of identification that can be used to verify your identity such as your driver’s license of USI ID card. Once your identity has been confirmed, the Computer Center can reset your password for you.

If you have questions about your employee password, call the myUSI Support Desk (812) 465-1070 and identify yourself as an employee or faculty member with questions concerning your password.

Students and Alumni:

If you are a student or alumnus, you must call or visit USI Computer Center in order to have your myUSI password reset. The Computer Center is located in the lower level of the Orr Building.

Please bring your USI ID card as proof of your identity. You may be asked further questions based on your student records to further verify who you are. Once your identity has been confirmed, the Computer Center can reset your password for you.

If you are unable to visit the Computer Center, you may call the myUSI Support Team at (812) 465-1070 and ask to have your myUSI password reset. You will be asked a series of questions in order to verify your identity.

If you answer them correctly, the myUSI Support Team will reset your password for you. If you are unable to answer the questions correctly, you will need to visit the Computer Center in person in order to have it reset.

If you have asked that your USI records flagged as private, we will be unable to reset your password over the phone. If you live in the area, you can stop by the Computer Center to have your password reset. This is an additional precaution used to protect your privacy. If you are a distance ed student and have your records flagged as private, the myUSI Support Team can mail your new password to the home address that we have on file for you.

Parents of USI Students:

Parents of USI Students do not have myUSI usernames or passwords.

However, if you are a parent trying to pay a bill for a student, the student must first identify you as an Authorized Payer within their myUSI account.

Once they have done this, they can provide you (the parent) with an Authorized Payer username and password.

The Computer Center does not know these passwords. Please do not call the Computer Center asking for them. We don’t have access to them and cannot create or reset them.

Your student can configure Authorized Payers by going to the  myUSI Start page, then clicking on the Sign In >> button, then clicking on the  Self Service button, followed by putting in their myUSI Username and Password.

Next, they should click the Student and Financial Aid link, and then click on View Bills/Pay Online. Finally, they can click on the Authorize Payers link in order to configure your username and password.

Once these steps have been completed an email will be sent to the authorized payers giving them a link to use when paying the USI bill online.

This is podcast is related to the FAQ article: “How do I protect my privacy when using myUSI?”

Download myUSI Frequently Asked Questions podcast Episode 1

Podcast music available from ccmixter.org

Here are a few tips and precautions that you can take to help protect your privacy while using the myUSI portal.

Passwords

Make sure to take extra precautions in order to protect your myUSI password. Do not share your password with anyone. In general, it is also safer if you do not write your password down or leave it in a visible or easily accessible place.

For added security, it is a good idea to change your password to a unique and difficult to guess password or phrase. You can do that by doing the following:

1. Login to myUSI
2. Click on the My Account link in the upper left of the page
3. Type in your current password
4. Type in your difficult to guess password. The longer the better, mixed case is even better, and a combination of letters, numbers and special characters is even better still
5. Retype your difficult to guess password to confirm it
6. Then, click the Save Changes button

Secret Questions

Your Secret Questions can be used to reset your password in the event you forget your current password and the myUSI Helpdesk (812-465-1070) is closed (after hours, weekends, and holidays). Five question and answer pairs are stored for you in the myUSI system. When you click the “Reset your password” link under the login section of the myUSI home page, you will be asked three of those questions and your password will be reset after successfully answering them (case and punctuation are important).

It is important to choose questions (there are defaults, but all questions can be changed) and answers that can only be answered by you. Questions that can be answered by anyone mean that anyone can reset your password.

Not a good situation.

You can configure your secret questions by doing the following:

1. Log in to myUSI
2. Click the School Services tab
3. Click the Change Your Secret Questions link in the School Resources channel
4. Make the changes to your questions and answers
5. Click the Save Changes button when you are done

Browser Security

Make sure to EXIT or QUIT all of your web browser sessions and close any open windows when you are finished using the myUSI web portal.

Computer Security

It is a sad fact that computers are under constant assault by viruses, worms, harmful bots, etc. To make sure that your information doesn’t fall prey to these, as a compromised computer is a serious threat to your privacy, it is important to keep your computer up to date with security patches available from your operating system provider (i.e. Microsoft, Apple, etc) and make use of properly configured firewalls and virus scanning software.