BPA Server Overload Linked to Amsel Return

Since its inception, Buff Portal Advising has been plagued with non-stop server crashes and denial of service attacks, requiring constant maintenance and updates. At the start of 2021, however, these issues suddenly disappeared, seemingly without explanation, only to return just as suddenly in early fall. CU’s IT security team immediately started digging through data, searching for anything that correlated with the cessation and the later return of BPA’s server issues. “We pulled data on enrollment trends and mass messaging campaigns; we scanned national, global, and university-level politics – and even SOCT and BIT files – looking for malicious actors,” explained Dan Jones, Associate Vice Chancellor for Integrity, Safety, and Compliance. “Finally, we had it: Laurel Amsel.” Amsel retired at the end of December and then returned a couple of months ago to “help out.” It seems the average-length Amsel BPA log uses enough data to crash the servers. Jones and his team have since released a new set of BPA best practices in which advisors and coaches are asked to limit their logs to no more than five paragraphs. “And for the love of god,” Jones added while pulling out his last remaining clump of hair, “why so many exclamation points???”