Phishing FAQs

— Update for WDMCS Staff –

 

Phishing FAQs

Q1. I received an mail from training@cybersafeworkforce.com  titled “Reminder about Required Training” telling me I have a training module to do – is this legit?

A1. Yes, it is legit , training@cybersafeworkforce.com is the company that our district uses for our phishing testing and training.

 

Q2.  What does this mean?   If I opened and read the email – is that causing me to go through the training?  How can I read my email without getting into trouble?

A2.  Reading your email is ok.  That’s not the issue… What causes you to get added to the training is when you click on the links and visit the sites that the phishing is asking you do –  it’s these sites that either download viruses or attempt to gather information from you. Our advice: check who the sender really is, read the message and find out what they are asking for –  is it a realistic request? Most of the time, the sender will be from some strange email address or they want you to visit some website that isn’t related to our district or the topic they are discussing.

 

Q3. I want to know exactly what email (date/time/content) caused the issue for me –  can you tell me that information?

A3.  Open a ticket with the techs (helpdesk.wdmcs.org) and we’ll contact that company and request the information.   (Note: we don’t have the information – the testing is done blindly – meaning that everyone in the district is tested and no one knows when or what messages are sent.  That also means that the tech department doesn’t know who passed or failed the phishing messages). But if you want to know – open a ticket with the techs, we’ll contact the company and we’ll find out.

 

Q4. What happens if I don’t do the training?  is someone actually going to come after me?

A4.  Anyone who has been assigned the training and does not complete it by March 30th,  the company will notify HR, who will follow up with employees, just as they follow up with individuals who do not complete safe schools training.

 

Q5. Why don’t we just add this to the safe schools training and make everyone take it?

A5. We discussed that option, as we could have just assigned the training to everyone in the entire district.   However, since the majority of people aren’t getting caught by the phishing messages – why would we assign them extra training?

 

Q6. I just received the following phishing email. I know that other staff members have received it as well.  Will you be forwarding this to all staff to make sure everyone is aware?

A6.  Back in the day when we only had a few phishing emails come through, I would have sent them out to all staff as a heads up.  However, we’re now seeing such a large number of phishing related emails that we are no longer sending out notifications – it just happens too often to send notifications for each time. The best thing you can do is use the Mark as Spam button within your email. This will report the email appropriately.

 

Q7.  I just got a phishing email…   almost got me on that one, Brian.  Nice try!

A7. Sorry to disappoint you –  but I do not personally send out the phishing messages.  The testing is done blindly by an outside company. By doing this – everyone in the district is tested and none of us know when it will take place or what the messages will be.

 

Q8.   Why weren’t staff warned about this?    

A8. We first notified staff about phishing training in April 2018 (https://wdmtech.wordpress.com/2018/04/17/phishing-testing/)   Due to the nature of the testing, we will never notify staff of exactly which message will be sent nor exactly when it will be sent.  Also, as noted earlier – the testing is done by an outside company, so we do not control the messages or the times they are delivered.

 

Q9. Why are we doing phishing testing?  Don’t we have better things to do?
A9.  I’m sure we have things we’d rather be doing –  but a large portion of our staff fell for the fake phishing tests and the trend is clear:  K-12 schools are the new target. Read more:

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-02-07-report-a-new-cybersecurity-incident-strikes-k-12-schools-nearly-every-three-days

Drive File Stream

 – FOR WDMCS STAFF  –

New tool allows you to store ALL traditional files – including Office files – right alongside your Google Files

 

We know that in a mixed environment of traditional Word files and Google Docs it can be confusing to know where you’ve saved something. How many times have you asked yourself “Did I save that on H? My Google Drive? My laptop?  My Desktop?”

Google now provides a tool that will put your Google Drive right on your computer as a “G” Drive. It’s called Drive File Stream.

In order to use Drive File Stream, you’ll have to log into the application which can be found in the Start Menu of your computer. We have full instructions and a couple of short training videos available on the Tech Hub here:

https://sites.google.com/a/wdmcs.org/wdmcstechhub/systems/google/drive-file–stream

As you use the G drive, you’ll also notice that this Drive File Stream app gives you access to your Team Drives (that you have already been able to access within the Web version of Google Drive). Team Drives allow you to collaborate and store files in a common location, just like the K drive used to be.  As more and more people migrate to using the Drive File Stream app as well as Team Drives on the web, we’ll be looking to remove the K drive entirely. Keep in mind that you won’t lose any functions of the K drive, it’s just that your files will be accessed in a different way (through the G Drive). It’s likely this transition will happen within the next 6 months. As we move through this, a member of the Tech Dept will be reaching out to you to help with the move of any existing content you have on the K drive to a new folder on the Team Drive.

Frequently Asked Questions

• The files I have on the K drive used to be used for collaboration, but no one other than myself uses them any longer.  Do I still need to move them to Team Drive?
  If you’re the only one who is using those files, then no, they don’t need to exist on the Team Drive.  But you should take time to move them to your My Drive folder. You can easily do this using Drive File Stream. Just copy/paste from the K drive to your My Drive folder.

• Isn’t Team Drive part of Google Drive? So do all of my Word/Excel files have to transfer to Google files?

Team Drive is part of Google Drive, but that does NOT mean your Word/Excel files will transfer to Google file types. Team Drive is simply the storage location of your files, not the type of files they are.

• After the files are moved, how do I access them?
  Look for the Team Drives folder either by:

1. 1. Using Drive File Stream on your computer (open Word, Excel, etc files natively within the program)
   2. Using Google Drive on the web, right along side your My Drive documents.

• Because these are now stored “in the cloud” I am concerned about someone sharing the files with unauthorized parties using Google’s sharing tools built into Google Drive.
  We certainly understand you want to make sure access to your collaborative files are kept in check. If this is a concern, please make sure you request your files are moved to their own Team Drive, not the “Building All” team drive. This way you can control who has access to the files.

For another layer of security, your Team Drive can be set to prevent sharing with anyone outside of that team drive. So in many respects, there are several more layers of security available on a Team Drive folder than you have in a traditional file share.