VPN Outage + Replacement VPN solution for UIC

Dear Faculty, Staff, and Students,

On Monday, February 25, ACCC’s Virtual Private Network (VPN) solution (Viscosity OpenVPN) suffered an outage, and despite our best efforts, service was not able to be restored. VPN provides a secure connection to university networks, enabling remote access to resources that are normally restricted to on-campus use.

OpenVPN is an old, custom built solution that had been slated to be replaced this summer. To that end, ACCC has been finalizing the testing and implementation of a replacement VPN solution, AnyConnect, which we had intended to make available next month. Although today’s outage has forced us to accelerate our timeline, we are confident this solution will provide an improved experience, as AnyConnect offers improved security, stability, and performance. You can run this product on your work or home computers and mobile devices as long as you maintain student, staff, or faculty status at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Please be aware that use of the AnyConnect solution requires UI Verify two-factor authentication (2FA). Some of you may have already set this up to access some University services. You can find out more about 2FA at: https://go.uic.edu/2FA.

To download AnyConnect, visit the WebStore at https://go.uic.edu/getVPN for Windows/MacOS/Linux devices or search for AnyConnect on the App Store or Google Play for your mobile devices. Please note that if your device is managed by your department’s IT staff, you may not be able to install the AnyConnect client yourself, and you should follow up with your department’s IT staff.

Instructions for installation and use of the AnyConnect VPN client can be found at: https://go.uic.edu/VPNinstructions.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this outage may have caused you and appreciate your patience and understanding during this accelerated transition timeline.

More information can be found at https://accc.uic.edu/service/vpn. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at: consult@uic.edu.

Cynthia Herrera Lindstrom
CIO, Executive Director and HIPAA Privacy and Security Officer

For more information, please contact:
consult@uic.edu