Dearborn Public Schools
Troy Patterson If you use eBay (either for personal or work use), eBay is asking all users to change their passwords due to a cyberattack that compromised a database.
eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY) said beginning later today it will be asking eBay users to change their passwords because of a cyberattack that compromised a database containing encrypted passwords and other non-financial data.
https://blog.ebay.com/ebay-inc-ask-ebay-users-change-passwords/
One of our fundamental shifts this year has been the implementation of Google Apps for Education. This is truly a seismic change in thinking and work. Google Apps can make us more efficient and effective. However, it also means that things need to be done a little bit differently. Trying to do things just like they’ve always been done doesn’t make things more efficient. Rather, that can lead to frustration.
Let’s take a quick look at what happened last month as example. Last month, we received 4,559,431 emails. One month – over 4.5 million emails. An additional 522,685 emails were SPAM and moved automatically to the SPAM mail folder. We sent over 125,000 emails.
One of the very powerful pieces of Google Apps is the ability to share documents. However, not all documents need to be shared. By far, most of our documents are not shared (this is expected and appropriate). We had over 25,000 documents created last month. We had an almost 10,000 spreadsheets created. We have over 179,000 documents that are private to the owner – not shared. We have roughly 7,000 documents that are shared within or outside the school district.
This has been a terrific year. As we continue to grow and learn, we’ll be able to leverage some of these possibilities.
Please do NOT use Internet Explorer except for sites that won’t work with anything else. Internet Explorer has a zero day exploit that makes it vulnerable.
Creating good passwords that you can actually remember can be difficult. Here is a great site to create memorial, secure passwords:
Secure Memorable Password Creator
A couple of tips:
You’ll still have a secure password that is memorable.
There is a strong incentive for companies to continue to make the Internet safe. Rarely do I post concerns about various issues that arise. Many of you may have heard of the Heartbleed vulnerability on the news. We’ve done a posting on the issue on the tech blog I’m not a “the sky is falling” prognosticator, but the Heartbleed bug is a serious issue.
This follows the Target debacle of last year.
Passwords are a necessary evil. Currently, we don’t have a better way to make sure that you are you. Although biometrics may be coming, they are not fully here yet. Best practice says that you shouldn’t repeat passwords (ie. you should have a different password for every site). However, remembering that many different passwords is impossible. Thus, people tend to pick really easy to guess passwords and use them everywhere. In reality, the pros tend to use a password management system. (Writing your password and “hiding” under your keyboard doesn’t qualify as a system). Here are a few:
All of the above work pretty much the same way. You have one secure password to remember that lets you create different passwords on web sites. These programs fill the passwords in on sites that you visit. These vary greatly in usability however. 1Password is the most expensive, but the easiest to use. KeePass is free but the least user friendly.
Most browsers will also offer to save passwords. This isn’t very secure as that file can be easily read.
Really. Change your passwords. This applies to your personal accounts as well.
Please note that your district password is the same for several sites, including Gmail for work. If you change your password at a computer, this will change your password for Gmail. That means that you’ll have to reenter the new password on your smart phone which checks your work email. Oh, and your iPad. And your Android tablet. And your home computer. ETC.
You can change your password by going to the Staff Resources page, Then Change your password under Productivity.
Changing your password will not hurt anything – except for the inconvenience of entering and remembering it. The list of sites is changing daily. Mashable is currently hosting an updated list of sites with their current vulnerable status.
We are moving to more secure passwords. This has been in planning for some time. We have tried to hold off to develop some training, but we will need to reevaluate this. We truly understand that this can be difficult, but it is important. More information will be provided via email.
The new password requirements will be as follows:
Heartbleed is a serious security vulnerability in web servers that run OpenSSL. (A lot of web servers run OpenSSL). Intrusion leaves absolutely no trace what so ever. Thus, there is no way to know if someone has implemented the vulnerability.
Lots of web servers run OpenSSL for security and authentication. This bug could allow someone to steal your user name and password, without anyone knowing.
The short answer is that you should change your passwords on all important sites. The bad news is that you need to do that after the server has been updated and new security certificates installed. However, unless the individual site tells you that they have updated, you’ll have no way of knowing.
UPDATE: Most providers have updated their sites. It is prudent to change your passwords.
The following sites are SOME sites that are vulnerable or not:
| Vulnerable | Not Vulnerable |
| Yahoo | |
| Flickr | Youtube |
| Eventbright | |
| Scoopit | |
| Zoho | Wikipedia |
This will be especially important for your personal accounts. We are currently reviewing our network vulnerability.
Several schools will be piloting SBAC testing next week. While we are working on moving as many of the links that students need to our Applications page, some programs can’t be linked that way. In those cases, we put an icon on the desktop of student computers.
In the case of SBAC, the icon will look like this:
Do you want your students to bloom? Join us for BLUME (Blended Learning Using Moodle Expertly). This will be a Blended Learning opportunity the helps teachers learn how to use iLearn. SCECH’s are available.
BLUME Schedule
Day 1: 04/12/2014 – 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Mandatory (Face to Face)
Day 2: 05/3/2014 – 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Optional Face to Face & Video Conference
Day 3: 05/10/2014 – 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Optional Face to Face & Video Conference
Day 4: 05/31/2014 – 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Mandatory (Face to Face) – Sharing
All meetings will be held in the Board Room at ASC.
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There is a very important update for iOS devices. The update (iOS 7.0.6) updates a SSL script that is very important to keeping your device safe. However, after updating, some may notice their Google Calendar not syncing all events. We believe that we have a fix.
After updating your iOS device, please do the following:
That’s it. This means that your calendar may be up to an hour behind changes made on other devices. However, this is generally preferable to syncing taking days and days.
The Technology Department is committed to providing terrific service. We are very pleased when we receive positive feedback. Here is one example of an email that I received about a member of the technology department:
He came by during class, discretely asked if it was a good time and because we were doing bell work and it was my smallest class, and I really wanted the problem fixed I said sure. He came in, fixed the problem quietly and departed. I appreciated getting my Promethean remote back in working order.
Thank you to the teacher for letting me know that the hard work of the Technology department is appreciated.