Email out of commission today

11 AM Monday 12/19
Best consider email unreliable today and make contacts otherwise until we made the transfer to the new server. My apologies.

9 AM Monday 12/19
This morning we are in the midst of a change of server and upgrade that is taking longer than we thought. Currently the only reliable wasy to access email is via Outlook Web access, https://exchange.ieminc.org/owa/, For some this URL is not working. In this case use the the address, https://64.55.116.132/owa/. You may have to confirm security exceptions to get to the website. Go ahead and do that.

We hope that the conversion/upgrade will be done by tomorrow. Until that time, don't worry about what you see in Your Outlook application. just use the web access. I will keep you updated here and by email when available.

The IRS does not initiate taxpayer communications through email

If you like me have noticed notices appearing from the IRS in my SPAM, you might appreciate the information on this page. http://www.irs.gov/privacy/article/0,,id=179820,00.html

The main message is if you have received any email purporting to be from the IRS it is likely bogus. Please protect yourself and go to the link above to find out more.

New Message Security/Discovery Service from Google - Powered by Postini

Great News!  We will soon be switching to the Google Message Discovery Service (powered by Postini). This service includes both Message Security and Message Archiving features. providing you with world-class protection against dangerous viruses and spam as well as email archiving. This service is scheduled to rollout beginning this Friday, July 28, 2011.

The primary reasons for this switch are it is a little less expensive than the one we had been using. Also, it includes email archiving(searchable by the user) for up to 10 years. This will also help us comply with legal requirements about email retention.

This is what you should expect:

1. As we add your email address to the service, you will receive an email

   notification that welcomes you to the service and the Message Center and

   includes password instructions that permit access to the Message Center.

2. You will receive a daily email notification with a Quarantine Summary

   which provides a list of messages that have been quarantined since the

   previous day. You can view the messages from the list, deliver them directly

   to your inbox or just ignore them. Virus-detected messages are deleted

   and will not appear on the list.

Please log in to your Message Center as soon as possible to review any possible

legitimate messages, prevent a sender's message from being quarantined in the future

by updating your Approved Senders List, adjust your sensitivity to spam or select

another language preference.

For more information on the Message Center and Quarantine Summary, we encourage you to take a guided tour of the service:

http://www.postini.com/webdocs/mc_resources/tour/email_security_tour/engage.html

For additional questions you may have regarding the Message Center or Quarantine

Summary, please view our Message Center FAQ:

http://www.postini.com/webdocs/mc_resources/faq_inter/faq_inter_en/engage.html

Macs no longer immune

There has been a myth going around for some years that Apple's Macintosh computer does not have viruses or malware attacking it. This is not true.


For many years, as the Macintosh only had about a 5% market share of personal computers, most hackers focussed their nefarious deeds on the Windows platform. Now with Macintosh gaining in popularity again, the tables have turned. Hackers are now turning their attention the Macintosh. I quote a recent article, This Mac security myth was busted two weeks ago when a large number of Mac users are hit by a malware known as “Mac Defender” If you have encountered this, check the Apple support site for help.

I encourage all Macintosh users to invest in Anti-Virus/Malware protection. A variety of these are displayed on the Apple website at http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/. Some of the schools have purchased product, VirusBarrier X6 10.6.9 that is recommended by Apple. There is also a free product they recommend, Free Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition 7.2C.

Also make sure that you have put in a password for your account(make sure you write it down somewhere for safekeeping).http://support.apple.com/kb/VI32, This is a basic protection that you can implement immediately.


For those of you with IPads, there are not yet any identified malware, but with the popularity of this device, there is no telling when it might appear. Here is an article with a few security tips, http://www.gottabemobile.com/2011/03/12/top-5-things-to-do-when-you-get-your-ipad-2-setup-and-security/

Whatever you decide on please take action to protect your Macintosh computer from viruses and malware.

Additional Things To Clean The Bugs Out

Here are some guidelines that we all should use to help keep our email free of malware. (Think of it as washing your hands regularly to keep from passing any germs onto your friends.)

1.       Install a virus scanner.See the prior post about this
2.       And yes that includes the Apple computer.  These are getting infected also. We have found two in the last 2 weeks.
3.       Please make sure you scan your computer for viruses at least once a week.
4.       Make sure your Anti-Virus system is up-to-date.

Here is just some good common practices. 

1.       Do not use machines that are not under your control (e.g. public computers).
2.       Do not share your password.
3.       Do not connect to a network that you don’t have control over. (Library, Hotel network are insecure at best. If you must use one, keep it to a minimum and follow security guidelines).
4.       Change your email password every 6 months.

If we can get everyone to do their part, we can make things a bit more secure for everyone.

Help me clean up my computer!

This post is selfish. I am hoping that you all can help me clean up my email. I starting getting some odd emails that look like email delivery failures. What they are in fact is evidence that someone who has my email address has been infected with a computer virus or malware. This one is probably a trojan, which is so named because unbeknownst to you it hijacks your computer and secretly sends out SPAM. It could even be that someone accessed their email via the web on another computer that was already infected. It is all but impossible to track the source of these clever little beasties. The best we can do is each of us clean up the computers we use to ensure that we are not the sender. Here's how:

1. Shut down your email program. Both local and web access
2. Update your anti-virus software. (We have bought a copy of AVG for each of our users) There are many companies that offer these, McAfee, Trend.  Here is a free one for the macintosh. You should have  one. Make sure you do this on any computer you have accessed you email including webmail, then scan the machine for viruses.
3. Download and install malwarebytes(PC only)(select the free version), and run a scan also(quick scan is sufficient). Here is scanner for Macintosh.

I really hope you can help me clean up my email this way. Thanks in advance.

PS. This will also help everyone else that you email.

PPS. It is possible to set up regular scans with your anti-virus software that help you from ever getting infected. Check it out

Managing your email account

As we all know, communicating through email is a major part of our jobs. In order to keep our email service running at its greatest speed and efficiency, we must perform regular maintenance, just as we would any of our important tools. One of thing the primary things we must do to keep our email running well is to keep the size of the mailbox under control. The greater volume and size of emails and attachments that we now use to communicate now could threaten to overwhelm any system.

I have attached, in this message, links which will take you to some slick training pages that can make you into an informed email user with the tools to keep your email running efficiently. Especially if you have experienced odd behaviors with your email and you have never paid any attention managing the size of your mailbox, I recommend that you check out one of the following trainings.

Outlook 2003
Outlook 2007

PS. If you only use Outlook Web Access, there are no current training materials online, but there is a handy help menu that has lots of helpful hints. just click on the
 symbol in the upper right hand corner when you log in.

CWEB updates

Thanks to all you users using the new CWEB (https://cweb.ieminc.org) interface for logging into to FRED. We hope that it will ultimately be more convenient and secure. However while it is still new, we are still working out some kinks.

Although you are using a website to log in, you must still use your own computer. You should not use any computer that is not personally yours to log in. i.e. do not use a public computer or a parent's computer. This is for several reasons. One, because you must still have the Citrix client application installed on the computer(you cannot do this generally on public computer), you may not know the security situation and would be risking computer malware infection and finally there is an additional cost to the school for each different computer that you log in from.

If you run into any problems with this log in, please go through your normal tech support process. There is information available at www.iemsupport.com and here is a little video to help you with the initial log-in.

Thursday Night Development Downtimes for FRED

In order to allow for planning for all users, we are going to try to keep our development downtimes for FRED on a regular schedule. This will be Thursday nights starting at 10 PM. There will also be occasional weekend downtimes, but not on a regular schedule. Most Thursday downtimes will be for one hour( however this Thursday, Feb. 17, it may last up to 2 hours). Hopefully this regularly scheduled Thursday night downtime will make for better planning and fewer disruptions for all users.

Improved Purchase Order Process!

In the first week of 2011, Vendor Relations processed a huge number of PO requests through FRED in record time. About 1,200 PO requests were processed in about 4 hours using the new Automated Fax PO process installed earlier in 10/11 school year.

Everyone is tickled with this new process and we wanted to tell you about it.

The previous process for PO requests involved these steps:

1. Find Service PO requests, process them 2. Print them (an average of 300 total POs per day with 600-1000 on peak days) 3. Manually fax each one to the vendor (deal with fax machine getting full/stuck etc) 4. Manually review confirmation reports 5. Re-fax or mail any that didn't go through 6. Shred all printed POs 7. Repeat for Product PO requests

The new process has been simplified:

1. Click one button which finds all Product and Service POs and electronically faxes them to the vendor 2. If a vendor does not accept faxes, their POs automatically print so they can be mailed 3. If a fax does not successfully send, an email notice is automatically sent to PO processors who then call the vendor to confirm their information 4. POs can be re-faxed at the click of a button and the fax will automatically include a note to the vendor that the PO is a duplicate

For those 1,200 POs, the new processed created savings in a single day of 850 pages of paper and the ink to print those pages. Additionally, significant staff hours to manually fax 850 POs to the vendors, review the confirmation reports, re-fax as needed, and then shred those 850 pages. This is literally hours of staff time saved in one day.

In addition to the vast reduction in paper, ink, and staff time, there are a few other improvements from this new process.

* Previously, the staff had very limited time/resources to follow up with vendors on bad fax numbers etc. The new process has provided ample time to get these errors corrected so the number of successful faxes has increased.

* When a PO is re-faxed, the automated note that is printed on the PO announcing it as a duplicate helps flag the vendor's attention and this helps reduce duplicate orders being sent by the vendor.

The  example of 1,200 POs on a single day is peak-volume for Vendor Relations, but even an average-volume day of processing saves 100’s of pages of paper, ink, and hours of staff time. Multiply this daily savings times 5 days each week and that’s a lot of savings of supplies, time, and money each month. Not to mention the morale boost from a huge increase in efficiency and ease of use!

Fake Security Alerts

Current alert and good general information

Microsoft is today(Jan 13, 2011) warning users of fake security alerts arriving via email. Microsoft is reminding users that it never sends out security alerts with attachments via email and that you should never open such an email if it arrives in your inbox.

Microsoft Email Security Updates Are a Scam

Cyber-criminals have been sending a so-called Microsoft updates that are actually viruses.

This scam in particular takes advantage of Microsoft's well-established Patch Tuesday schedule for monthly email updates. Potential victims receive an email purporting to be from Microsoft's Director of Security Assurance, Steve Lipner (who in fact does hold that role).
The recipient is then told to install the attached file, KB453396-ENU.exe (or a similar name), which is supposed to be the security update.

Worm, Virus Replicates Itself, Sends to Contact List

The email attachment (.EXE file) is actually a worm / virus, meaning that once it is installed on a users' PC, it will attempt to replicate itself by sending a copy of the infected attachment to all users on the host PC's contact list (address book).
The idea is to get the worm / virus on as many machines as possible in order to become part of a botnet. The botnet is then used to attack websites, corporate structures, and is even sold to other online criminals for their evil-doing.

Fake Alerts Contain Dubious Spelling, Dates

There are a variety of errors that reveal the message as a scam.
For example, the Microsoft update schedule is actually for the second Tuesday of the month, meaning the fake emails are a week early. More significantly, not only is the language of the email clearly not professional enough to be legitimate (suggesting it may be the work of people for whom English is not a first language), the writers have also misspelled the fake return address, writing no-reply@microsft.com rather than microsoft.com. (Source: networkworld.com)

Microsoft Security Checklist: How to Avoid Email Scams

Still, the sheer number of people using Windows means it takes only a tiny proportion of users to be fooled by such attacks to do a serious amount of damage. As a result, Microsoft has once again drawn its attention to a checklist for making sure a security email from the company is legitimate.
The checklist notes that Microsoft never includes attachments in an email. It also points out that any information it includes in such messages be duplicated on the Microsoft security site, so users should double-check to confirm this. To avoid confusion, the information always goes on the website before emails are sent out.
The company also advises that users do not click on links in security-related emails, but rather cut and paste the address into their browser. It also says that for added security it may be safer to visit the known home page of the site and navigate to the required information. (Source: microsoft.com)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Legitimate security communications from Microsoft

• Legitimate communications do not include software updates as attachments. We never attach software updates to our security communications. Rather, we refer customers to our Web site for complete information about the software update or security incident.
• Legitimate communications are also on our Web sites. If we provide any information about a security update, you can also find that information on our Web sites.

Microsoft does not make unsolicited phone calls to help you fix your computer

In this scam cybercriminals call you and claim to be from Microsoft Tech Support. They offer to help solve your computer problems. Once the crooks have gained your trust, they attempt to steal from you and damage your computer with malware including viruses and spyware.
Although law enforcement can trace phone numbers, perpetrators often use pay phones, disposable cellular phones, or stolen cellular phone numbers. It's better to avoid being conned rather than try to repair damage afterwards.