Tech Office updates for 12-14-2022


Hello everyone!  A few updates ...


Phishing test email this morning

Kudos to all of you who reported or otherwise didn't fall for today's phishing email test.  We do these tests to promote awareness among our staff as well as to meet our cyber-insurance requirements.  

This was our third test this semester, and we're happy to see that our click-through for this test was very low (only one person as of this email).  

  • The email is marked [External email] in the header, and also has the yellow "External" label in Gmail.  That's enough right there to tell you it's something from outside the district.
  • The address is from "School Principal" -- no name and not a real From: address.  Even if the [External email] labels didn't ring alarm bells, this should.
  • Vaguely-worded email imploring you to urgently do something you wouldn't normally do, and do it right now.
We will run another test series later in the spring, so be watching our newsletters for more info.  If you didn't receive today's test, you don't have to let us know as we will review the sent log then adjust for the next test.

Here's the phishing help sheet we sent out previously:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14qeuIU_hgBwbf5qtCRrGd93vo_ov4CP8/view?usp=sharing


Thanks for your patience!     :-)

Monday the Wyoming State Network had a pretty big slowdown that affected Internet access.  Yesterday afternoon Google experienced a nationwide issue that prevented many educational users from accessing Chromebooks.  We appreciate everyone's patience getting through these events, and we are hoping to have an uneventful rest of the week!  


Please turn off your desktop PC for the holiday break

Let your desktop PC have some time off too!  Please turn OFF your desktop PC for the holiday break.  When it shuts down, it will run any queued updates too.


Wireless change beginning this week

Starting today, we are activating the new "Fremont1_District" wireless network.  It will eventually replace the old "Fremont1_Secure."  To prevent a recurrence of the wireless key getting out to students, the District network is solely for district-owned devices like Chromebooks and staff IPads.  All Chrome devices already have the new key and they should switch over automatically.  If you have not yet read about the change, click here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14qeuIU_hgBwbf5qtCRrGd93vo_ov4CP8/view?usp=sharing


Content filtering change on Chrome devices today

Also as of today, all Chromebooks and Chrome browsers have been switched from using the IBoss content filter to our new Linewize content filter.  We will not get all our filtering rules exactly the way we want on the first try.  Please let us know via tech request if there's a website that either you or students cannot get to and you previously could.  We will follow up in January with more information regarding how Linewize works and what categories we are blocking, and also begin scheduling the changeover on Windows devices.  

We're already pretty excited how Linewize does a MUCH better job at filtering and protecting students, and it does its job much faster than IBoss which was the cause of many "the wireless is slow" complaints.


Venmo cash-transfer scam going around

As we don't use Venmo or Cash.app or any of those in the district, we normally wouldn't pass this on.  But there is a new form of payment-app scam going around that is similar to money laundering.  Someone uses a stolen credit card to "accidentally" send you money, then asks if you would return it out of goodwill.  If you do, the money you send is "your" money from your own account (not what was sent to you) and the sender pockets it.  When the stolen credit card cancels the fraudulent payment made to you, you are the one who loses the full amount.  If you use these kinds of services, please be aware that unsolicited transfers and "accidents" are most likely attempts to defraud you.


Windows 11 = Please don't  :-)

If you are manually going to Settings and running updates on your Windows PC, you may see a notification that your machine is capable of running Windows 11.  As a district, we are not ready to support Windows 11, but we unfortunately cannot turn off these announcements that appear in the Settings app.  If you do update to Windows 11, we will borrow your machine for the day to wipe it and return it to Windows 10.

If you turn off your PC every night or every week, it will run only the approved updates and you won't have to worry about seeing this notification.


Have a great break!

Look for our next newsletter in January with some great announcements about tech PD!  Have a great holiday break!   :-)


Chris, Kassy, and Kaiden







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