April 2023 - Clarke Headlee, IT Director
Hello APA! We are so excited that summer is almost here! The only thing that could maybe compare is our passion for security. We have three topics we wanted to share with you this month. The topics are all security-related and something that we encounter on a daily basis - FERPA, Phishing, and AEGIX DIR-S.
FERPA Violations -The majority of FERPA violations occur from printing.
A few examples of these violations:
- Printing the wrong document
- Sending a print to the wrong printer
- Forgetting to pick up a print job
- Not picking up a print job promptly increases the chance of printouts getting mixed up with others
How we can prevent these kinds of violations from occurring:
Stay mindful of what we are doing. We all get pulled in many different directions each day. Sometimes we rush repetitive tasks inviting errors without realizing it. Being mindful can help tune out some of life's daily distractions. Take just a moment longer to check the details. Double-check the document you are printing and the printer name you are sending it to. Put other activities on hold to promptly get to the printer to retrieve your print job.
Potential liabilities of FERPA violations:
- Personal liability
- Student vulnerability
- Potential professional/licensing consequences
- Loss of trust from parents
Phishing
Phishing schemes are on the rise. We talk about the issue frequently because our email systems are some of the greatest points of vulnerability we face. We have shared examples of high and low-effort phishing attacks in past newsletters.
Important points to remember:
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Always check the actual email address of the sender, not just the name. This is especially critical for emails that originate from outside our organization. These emails should say "CAUTION EXTERNAL" or have highly visible warnings that let you know this is from outside our organization. Please take those warnings seriously.
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Never send money or protected information based solely on an email request. This applies to text messages as well. It is OK to tell someone no or to seek verification that it is a legitimate request. We should also never feel embarrassed to ask for guidance. Seeking help is always a great move to make.
Why do we emphasize this topic so much?
The risk is great. A single compromised account could spread an attack or allow information to be exfiltrated from our networks. The best way to stop this and keep all of our staff, kids, families, and communities safe is to train and raise awareness on this topic constantly. The attackers are not stopping; they are only getting more clever daily.
APA staff have been incredible this year in what they have detected and reported to us. Keep up the great work!
Aegix DIR-S - This security app provides a way for every staff member to initiate a lockdown in the case of an emergency.
Aegix DIR-S has been available to all staff members for several months. This tool is so useful, it is important that you become familiar immediately with the application and how to use it. If you haven't already, download the security app and review the user guides today.
The app is designed with user convenience in mind, featuring Single Sign-On (SSO) functionality that makes signing in a breeze. Simply navigate to the app and follow the prompts to enter your login credentials. Use your work email and password to sign in.
The district has been doing an incredible job of running drills and sharing knowledge about how this app works. Thank you to everyone for putting in the effort to familiarize yourselves with this new software. If you do encounter any issues with the app, reach out to your tech support team.
One of the great features of this app is that even if some people don't have it, or aren't able to use it, the rest of the people using the app still provide valuable information. That is what the core concept of the app is about - getting information to people in an emergency.
If you are a new staff member and have yet to learn what this app is or does, then talk with your local IT, and we will get you all squared away.
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Aegix Instruction Guides (Click to Download) |
Thank you as always, and please reach out if you have any questions about these or any other topics.
Clarke Headlee
IT Director
March 2023 - Clarke Headlee, IT Director
Greetings, APA community!
Can you feel it? Spring is finally here, and with it comes the time-honored tradition of spring cleaning.
What does spring cleaning mean for us at APA? It means we have updated some of the systems we interact with daily. Specifically, we have made a significant update to the Wi-Fi at our schools. Believe it or not, we have been using the same Wi-Fi password since 2015, but it has become widely known. Don't worry. We have updated the password and technology to deploy our Wi-Fi networks. Our new method eliminates the need for multiple wireless network name broadcasts (SSID), improving performance and allowing us to create more segmented and specialized subnets. This also helps improve our content filtering effectiveness and ability to update passwords seamlessly in the future. Most importantly, this will keep students off Apple TVs and prevent unwanted casting to projectors and TVs.
We are excited about this change and hope you are too. Let's take it a step further and do a deep clean. In 2020, we switched our deployment manager for staff devices and requested everyone bring their computer in for updating. If you had IT enter the new Wi-Fi password on your laptop (not iPad or phone), there is a chance you still need to get the update. If you think this may be you, please contact IT to schedule an update.
We have one more item to dust off. We are seeing much better data on staff computer restarts, thanks to those making a conscious effort to do this critical task more frequently. However, we are still seeing many devices that have not been restarted for months, causing problems with software and applications. So please restart your devices regularly.
Thank you for everything you do, and until next time!
Clarke Headlee
IT Director
February 2023 - Clarke Headlee, IT Director
Although Valentine’s Day has passed, let’s include our technology in our circle of love!
Computer Love
Show your computer you care! Please restart your computers!! This will fix many issues:
- Not being able to connect to apple TVs
- Apps not working
- Things "glitching"
- Running slow
If your computer is running slow and you have a lot of Chrome tabs open, closing unneeded tabs will help. Not rebooting your computer can lead to "glitching." Believe it or not, IT can see when you last rebooted your computer! Some of our staff are pushing 6 months without a reboot! Please give your computer a refresh and reboot!
Secret Admirer Section
- Please always check the actual email address you are communicating with; do not trust the name.
- Never give out PII (Personally Identifiable Information) over email unless you know the person you are sending it to has the right to have that data.
- Only click random attachments if you are sure of the sender.
General IT Lovey-Dovey Stuff
If you need help with the new AEGIX/DIRS/AIM app, please see IT for assistance. Many APA employees still need to log into the AEGIX/DIRS/AIM application. Logging in and becoming familiar with this system is vitally important. This is our fastest and most reliable resource for calling for help in the case of an on-site emergency. If you haven’t logged in, set a goal to do so!
If you have any questions about the topics listed above, please contact your local IT support professional.
If you have any requests for future IT topics for our Staff Newsletter, please send them to me, Clarke Headlee, at cheadlee@apamail.org.
I hope everyone had a great Mid Winter break! Thanks, everyone!
Clarke Headlee
IT Director
_____________
Happy Valentine's Day, APA!!! This amazing holiday ( Fun Fact: also sometimes known as gift-giving day) is upon us, and in that spirit, we will keep this short and SWEET.
Computer Love
Please restart your computers. This will fix many issues:
- Not being able to connect to apple TVs
- Apps not working
- Things getting "glitching"
- Running slow
If your computer is running slow and you have a lot of Chrome tabs open, closing unneeded tabs will help. Not rebooting your computer can lead to "glitching." Believe it or not, IT can see when you last rebooted your computer, and some of our staff are pushing 6 months. Please reboot.
Secret Admirer Section
- Please always check the actual email address you are communicating with; do not trust the name.
- Never give out PII (Personally Identifiable Information) over email unless you know the person you are sending it to has the right to have that data.
- Only click random attachments if you are sure of the sender.
General IT Lovey-Dovey Stuff
If you need help with the new AEGIX/DIRS/AIM app, please see IT for assistance.
Many of our team members still need to log into the application. Logging in and becoming familiar with this system is vitally important. This is our fastest and most reliable resource for calling for help in the case of an on-site emergency.
If you have any questions about the topics listed above, please contact your local IT.
If you have any requests for future IT topics for our Staff Newsletter, please send them to me, Clarke Headlee, at cheadlee@apamail.org.
I hope everyone had a great Mid Winter break! Thanks, everyone!
January 2023 - Clarke Headlee - IT Director
Hello APA! I hope everyone had a fantastic 1st half of the school year. We are excited to begin rolling out our new security application, AIM (Active Incident Management), and have some guides to assist you in using the app.
The guides are available in three formats to ensure accessibility for all APA employees. All three guides are slightly different. We encourage you to look at all three of them. Feel free to install the app on your phones, but please DO NOT trigger any alerts or drills.
Training has begun! Please look forward to possible small group sessions during DTM, ProDev, and any other time we can squeeze them in.
Your local campus IT staff will be able to assist you with things like installing the app or adding additional campuses to your account.
We are very excited about this powerful new tool and hope everyone else will be.
Please select your preferred format below:
Phishing, Spoofing, and Scamming attacks are on the rise! Please stay aware and never send personally identifiable information or financial information via email to anyone outside our domain (apamail.org).
Always look at the actual email address, not just the name.
We are going to repost a previous newsletter article that addresses this topic.
APA Family!
We wanted to start this year off with a security reminder and a great example.
Email scams come in many different flavors: Phishing, Hoaxing, and Spoofing are a few of the commonly seen attacks. These types of attacks are very easy to initiate and are one of the most common attacks that we will encounter. Staying vigilant and keeping a high level of situational awareness, regarding your email communications, will go a long way to keep ourselves and our peers safe.
Always, always, always check the actual email address in the “From” field. Do not rely on the reported name. Anyone can set up an email address set the name to be whatever they want. This is especially important for any email that originates from outside our domain. We know when an email comes from outside our domain by the modified subject line of “[CAUTION EXTERNAL]”.
Bad actors will send us emails pretending to be someone else. They will ask for money and gift cards or try to get you to click a link or download a file. This will happen and there is nothing we can do to stop it. Our tools are very good at catching these types of attacks, but they are not guaranteed to catch everything.
Let’s all do our part by staying alert and aware of who, where, and what we are emailing.
Here are a couple of good examples of email attacks.
The below is a clever attack that is pretending to be our HR Department and asking us to click a link.
When we examine the email “From” field we see that it came from andyroo.burden@ntlworld.com. Clearly that is not an apamail.org email address or out HR Department.
Also take note of the “Disclaimer” at the bottom. The wording looks official, but ours is different. We have a “Confidentiality Notice”.
Wrong Signature Line
Correct Signature Line
When we pay attention to the details of an email it is easy to spot the fakes.
Bonus Fake
This attack was quite clever. The attacker sent the message to “amazonsupport@suppportinfo.com” then “CC’d” me as well. This way the “To” field shows the words “amazon support”. If I were to quickly glance at this email, I may think this is legitimately from Amazon support. Checking the details of the header reveals that the email came from “amzinfrmationacc8acdfanainqurf4@regards47.si.turuamazon.com”. Looks super suspicious and is not really from Amazon.
Fortunately, Yahoo caught this attack and put it directly in my spam, which made the attachment not downloadable. If I were to download the attachment something bad would most likely happen. I may not even notice what the file did. The download could contain any number of malicious files. Keyloggers and password readers are just a few of the possibilities.
Stay safe, stay alert.
Clarke Headlee
IT Director
November 2022 - Clarke Headlee - IT Director
Gobble, Gobble, Gobble!! Happy Thanksgiving! Your IT department wants to say THANK YOU to our entire APA community.
Thank you for always being patient with us.
Thank you for always being a part of the solution and being willing to try new things.
Thank you for understanding when we drop the ball. (Believe it or not, it does happen sometimes!)
Thank you for being Builders in a world of wreckers.
Thank you for always preparing your students and facilities for our events. Your efforts are what makes them so great.
Again, we say, "Thank you!"
We have some great new things coming down the line in November and December. Here are several notable ones.
Lab Carts - Updates are being applied to all lab carts that will update testing apps to the latest versions. We are currently at about 50% completion. It should take about a week for this to be complete.
AEGIX DIR-S - Instructions and guides for AEGIX DIR-S security app will be out shortly.
Canvas - An official APA Canvas implementation is in progress! Fingers crossed for a Winterim launch.
Campus PA Systems - Audio updates to PA systems will be deployed throughout December.
We will share more updates throughout the coming months. Please reach out to your local IT if you have any questions.
Clarke Headlee
IT Director
August 2022 - Clarke Headlee - IT Director
APA Family!
I hope everything is going smoothly and that the year is starting well for everyone. We wanted to start this year with a security reminder and a great example.
Email scams come in many flavors: Phishing, Hoaxing, and Spoofing are a few commonly seen attacks. These attacks are very easy to initiate and are one of the most common attacks we will encounter. Staying vigilant and keeping a high level of situational awareness regarding your email communications will go a long way to keep ourselves and our peers safe.
Always, always, always check the actual email address in the "From" field. Do not rely on the reported name. Anyone can set up an email address and set the name to whatever they want. This is especially important for any email that originates from outside our domain. We know when an email comes from outside our domain by the modified subject line of "[CAUTION EXTERNAL]."
Bad actors will send us emails pretending to be someone else. They will ask for money and gift cards or try to get you to click a link or download a file. This will happen, and there is nothing we can do to stop it. Our tools are very good at catching these attacks, but they are not guaranteed to see everything.
Let's all do our part by staying alert and aware of who, where, and what we are emailing.
Here are a couple of good examples of email attacks.
The below is a clever attack that is pretending to be our HR Department and asking us to click a link.
When we examine the email "From" field, we see that it came from andyroo.burden@ntlworld.com. Clearly, that is not an apamail.org email address or our HR Department.
Also, take note of the "Disclaimer" at the bottom. The wording looks official, but ours is different. We have a "Confidentiality Notice."
Wrong Signature Line
Correct Signature Line
When we pay attention to the details of an email, it is easy to spot the fakes.
Bonus Fake
This attack was quite clever. The attacker sent the message to "amazonsupport@suppportinfo.com" and then "CC'd" me. This way, the "To" field shows the words "amazon support ." If I were to glance at this email quickly, I might think this is legitimately from Amazon support. Checking the header details reveals that the email came from "amzinfrmationacc8acdfanainqurf4@regards47.si.turuamazon.com". It looks super suspicious and is not really from Amazon.
Fortunately, Yahoo caught this attack and put it directly in my spam, making the attachment un-downloadable. If I were to download the attachment, something bad would likely happen. I may not even notice what the file did. The download could contain any number of malicious files. Keyloggers and password readers are just a few of the possibilities.
Stay safe, stay alert.
Clarke Headlee
IT Director
July 2022 - Clarke Headlee - IT Director
Welcome Back APA!
We hope everyone had a fantastic summer. As we get prepared to start another amazing school year, we wanted to reach out to all staff members that still need to update their computers. Keep an eye on your emails to see if you are on the Operation System update list. You will get an email from your campus IT reminding you to stop by and get this done. IT staff will be available during preservice and DI week to assist with this. If your computer needs to be updated plan on it taking 1-3 hours, depending on how busy the IT table is. Don’t worry, loaner computers will be available if you need to use one while your computer is being updated.
Tips to help make the process more efficient:
Please make sure you have at least 30GB of storage free. You can find out how much storage you have available by clicking the magnifying glass icon in the top right, then typing “storage management” in the Spotlight Search text bar. At the top of the window, it will tell you how much space you have available.
If you need to free up storage space:
- Check your download folder. Delete anything you do not need from this folder. Especially video files.
- Clean your desktop! Delete unused or unneeded files.
- Move files into your Google Drive and remove them from your computer.
- Empty your trash.
IT will also be available to help you with all of the usual (and unusual!) needs.
Welcome back! Looking forward to an awesome year!
Clarke Headlee
IT Director
January 2022 - Clarke Headlee - IT Director
Hello APA family! Welcome to the IT Corner! This month we wanted to kick off summer (yay!!) with some tips and tricks to help make your lives easier when using Bookmarks in Chrome. These tips also apply to most browsers.
To begin, we will start with the number 1 tip of all time: Restart your computer! Like seriously, restart it all the time, then restart it again.
Now that we have that out of the way, we also have some great tips this month to help you with your Chrome Bookmarks.
Chrome bookmarks
Have your chrome bookmarks ever just disappeared? This is the absolute worst and a very annoying inconvenience. Fortunately, this is often caused by an easily fixable event.
When we use Chrome, it creates accounts for us. These accounts can be switched between different users.
You will know what account you are using by checking the circle icon in the upper right-hand corner.
Bookmarks are saved uniquely for each account. When I am using this account called apamail.org, I have my Bookmarks visible in the Bookmark bar.
When I switch to the Guest account or any other account on my chrome instance, those bookmarks no longer appear. This is because the bookmarks are associated with the account in which they were created.
To get my bookmarks back, I should check which account I am currently in by clicking the account icon in the upper-right and choosing the correct account.
Sometimes we use Chrome and don't realize what account we are logged into. This happens all the time and can lead to a vital bookmark being added to an unintended Chrome account. If it seems like your Bookmarks are gone, check all of your Chrome accounts.
If you discover that you have Bookmarks on multiple accounts, don't worry. There is an easy way to fix this.
Bookmark Management
Chrome gives us an easy way to manage our Bookmarks with the Bookmark Manager. To get there, simply:
- Click the three dots in the upper-right hand corner, choose Bookmarks, then choose Bookmark Manager.
- Once inside the Bookmark Manager, we can access and manipulate all our Bookmarks.
- Export your Bookmarks and save them on your desktop. Then you can import them into the correct account in Chrome.
Bonus Pro Tip!
Export your Bookmarks and then attach them to an email. Send yourself the email, and you will now always have access to a backup of your Bookmarks.
That's it for this month! Try out and familiarize yourself with these tips. Don't forget to restart your computer!
IT
January 2022 - Clarke Headlee & Tyler Lucas - IT
When was the last time you rebooted your computer? Most people are unable to remember the last time they did. It's easy to start a habit of closing your MacBook when you're not using it, opening it up when you're ready to use it again, and not waiting for it to start up.
Not regularly rebooting your computer at least once a week can reduce its efficiency and cause problems and slowdowns. So, while you think you're saving time by not completely turning off and restarting it, this can actually slow you down and cause more significant problems in the long run.
1. Rebooting allows all system processes to have a clean start.
○ Specific tasks or processes that are being done repeatedly by your computer will slow down over time. A simple reboot allows your computer to have a clean slate and start-up new processes and tasks.
2. Rebooting allows your computer to perform system and software updates.
○ Your computer can install macOS updates, applications, and drivers when you reboot.
3. Rebooting allows your WiFi and Bluetooth cards a chance to reset.
○ Experiencing slow internet? A simple reboot can improve your wireless experience! The WiFi and Bluetooth antennas get reset when you reboot your computer. It also forces your computer to reconfigure the connection to the WiFi. Forcing a WiFi reconnection can fix connectivity issues and improve your internet speed.
BUT!!!!
Our computers have specialty management software on them, unlike your home computer. This software constantly communicates with our management system and sends out minor updates.
Keeping all of your tabs open can make your computer sluggish over time. Fortunately, there is a solution that improves your computer's performance while still making your tabs easily available. You can save all of your open tabs to preserve them for later. IT has your back and we have done the Google search on how to do this for you!
Protip: Don't forget to backup your bookmark folders! The backup file can be saved to your desktop or Google Drive, so you never have to worry about losing all your bookmarks.
Safari:
Chrome
"Just right-click in the open space at the top next to the tabs, and then select 'Bookmark All Tabs.' You can also press Ctrl+Shift+D on Windows or Cmd+Shift+D on Mac to bookmark all of your tabs. Chrome will create a new folder for all open tabs. You can rename it if you want, and then click 'Save.'"
Please do yourself and IT a favor and restart your computer at least once a week.
October 2021 - Clarke Headlee - IT Director
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Almost everyone has experienced pop-ups on their devices from time to time. They are annoying, get in the way of productivity, and often lead to malicious software installed on your device. With a little bit of awareness and a small amount of vigilance, users can avoid most pop-ups. Here's a couple of leading practices to help you keep your devices clean.
- Do not install browser extensions. These handy applets do all kinds of miraculous things for us. They help us search, lighten our eye-blinding white screens with awesome dark themes, convert PDFs, and do many other wonderful things. Unfortunately, they also lead to pop-ups. Do yourself a favor and just don't install browser extensions. The 30 seconds of time they save you is usually not worth it.
- Do not allow websites to send you notifications. The ability to have
content and information you like sent directly to your phone and computer is fun and keeps you in the loop! It also is a prime attack vector for annoying advertisements and fake virus infection notifications. Just say NO to website notifications! - Flash Player. Yes, it is out of date. No, you don't want to click that window to update it. Flash Player is gone, and the world has moved on. Shouldn't you? A particularly common trick is for a pop-up to tell you your Flash Player is outdated and click "here" to update it. Do not ever
do this. It will install something on your device that you really don't want. It is often a profile that redirects all of your searches to an advertisement server. Think you may have done this? Does it seem like your searches are being highjacked by a search engine you've never heard of? You may have a maliciously inserted profile that is the culprit.
The internet is a wild place. Fortunately, IT has your back! If you are experiencing pop-ups, ask your friendly neighborhood IT to take a look, and they can probably get you back to normal.
If you're feeling particularly savvy because you read our awesome newsletter, of course, and want to clean your computer up by yourself, start with these three areas.
Enjoy fall break and keep surfing safely.
September 2021 - Clarke Headlee - IT Director
- We heard your feedback and listened! The student lab computers had their Single Sign-on(SSO) screen eliminated. Now all students log into a generic account on the computers. This should help with getting students logged into the lab computers. All lab computers now have standard student and testing accounts as well.
- Some of you may have received emails from YouTube stating that access to videos may be impacted by age settings. Google recently implemented age verification for all Google accounts, which means that if an account has not been specified as being over 18, it will default to under 18. All staff and organizational accounts are set to over 18, while students are set to under 18. We should not notice any difference in our accounts. Please reach out to IT if you run into trouble accessing YouTube content.
- We've implemented a new security feature this year, the new warning tag on our emails: [CAUTION EXTERNAL]. This is currently best practice for enterprise email accounts, which will help us all to remember that we need to be aware of how we are using email. Never trust an email asking for contact information, personal identification information, or money/gift cards. Always inspect the "from" address, not just the display name. Please check out this example of a phishing attempt. Notice how the from says "Support" and looks safe. Once the email is actually examined, it is clear this is not a secure email. What other suspicious items can you find in this email?
