Digital Security

Staff,

The technology department has noticed a rise in the number of spear-phishing and spoofed emails being reported. Spear-phishing is a targeted email meant to capitalize on a personal relationship. Spoofing is the use of a header to make an email appear that it comes from someone other than the true source.

For example: someone spoofs the principal’s email and asks teachers to get gift cards. Eventually they ask for the code on the card and redeem it.

Email addresses may looks like:

principal’snamemoundsviewschools@gmail.com

principal’snamerandomnumber@gmail.com

First message may be “Are you available?”

Before answering an email like this or others that may be asking for personal information or for you to purchase something, please remember to check the following:

• Did the email come from a legitimate account? You will often see a warning banner if you receive an email from someone with the same name as a contact in the district.

• If you are not sure that the email is real, call the sender and ask to verify that they sent the email.