1. Working remotely and keeping the digital world secure requires all AAPS staff to be proactive and diligent. With October heralded as Cybersecurity Awareness Month, now is a great time to be thinking about reviewing the online safety basics. One way cybercriminals have become quite savvy in their attempts to lure people in and get you to click on a link or open an attachment is through a technique called Phishing.
AAPS Phishing
We are seeing a multitude of phishing attempts here at AAPS. The latest are emails that look like they are from building principals. They use the username of the principal but it is from the wrong domain, username.a2schools@gmail.com. All AAPS emails will come from either @aaps.k12.mi.us or @a2schools.org not @gmail.com. The emails usually start innocently enough asking something simple like "Are you available?" But they eventually ask for money or iTunes gift cards if you respond.
How to Avoid Phishing Attacks
When you get an email that looks suspicious, here are a few things to check for:
If the sender is asking for something. Verify through another form of communication that the email is real.
Check that the email address and the sender name match.
Check if the email is authenticated.
Hover over any links before you click on them. If the URL of the link doesn't match the description of the link, it might be leading you to a phishing site.
Check the message headers to make sure the "from" header isn't showing an incorrect name.
Don’t click any links or provide personal information until you've confirmed the email is real.
Report the email to ITD & Google:
Open the message in a browser.
Next to Reply , click the 3 dots for More.
Click Report phishing.
2. We are starting to see more stability with our Zoom video conferencing tool. If you are using Zoom with your students, please make sure to follow the AAPS Zoom Security Best Practices & Instructions which will help you create the following:
Zoom Personal Security Settings - Steps 1-5
Scheduling a Secure Zoom Meeting - Steps 6-14
Adding a Zoom Meeting Link to Schoology - Steps 15-20
3. Device updates are important to perform regularly!
Web browsers - Should be updated to the latest version available. As of this email here are the current versions:
Chrome - 86.0.42
Firefox - 81.0.2
Safari - 14.0
Zoom - Zoom recently released an update with a lot of security updates. If you have not updated Zoom please check your version. The current version is 5.3.2.
Teacher Laptop - The current OS the ITD is supporting is High Sierra on the teacher laptops. Please install any update that Apple recommends that is not an OS upgrade.
Secondary Teacher Devices - Please keep any other devices that ITD may have given you to the latest version. iPads can be updated to 13.7 and Chromebooks to 86.0.42.
Thanks for being #cyberaware and #staysafeonline!
