ITD has recently been notified that District employees are receiving emails claiming to need the employee's username and password. Do not respond to the email or click on any links in the email, even it comes from a LAUSD email address. The email is a scam to gain access to your LAUSD email account. This is called "phishing" and it is a common type of Internet fraud. ITD is blocking these emails and web sites as it becomes aware of them using our email and web filters.

These phishing emails will claim to come from a legitimate source like your employer, bank or credit card company and may ask you to verify your account numbers and/or passwords in order to prevent a threatened closing of your account or some other inconvenience. They may also ask you to click a link in the email that will take you to a web site that looks like a legitimate site, or to call a toll free number that will seem legitimate but is not. If you receive one of these emails, you can be sure it did not come from ITD; ITD will never ask you for your password.

To protect yourself against phishing attempts:

• Never email personal information like usernames and passwords, or a bank or credit card account number. Legitimate companies will never ask you to provide such information over email.

• Never provide this information after you have followed a link in an email. If you use online banking, log in using the web site you always use.

• Don't use the phone number listed in email you suspect to be a phishing attempt. The phone number is most likely controlled by the people running the phishing scam. Verify phone numbers by checking the number on your bank statements.

• If you think you have given out your personal information to a phishing scam, immediately notify ITD. You may need to contract your bank or credit card company using the contact information on your monthly statements. Review your financial records for unauthorized charges.

• Use anti-virus and anti-spyware software programs and update them regularly.

For more information on protecting your personal information, and general online safety, see http://onguardonline.gov/.

Sincerely,
Ronald Chandler
Chief Information Officer
LAUSD

Bogus Emails Notifying Recipients that They Are Over Their Mailbox Limit:

One email that has caused a lot of damage at LAUSD is one that informed the recipient they have exceeded their mailbox limits. The email provided a link to a login page. This login page was not a LAUSD page. It actually was setup to CAPTURE your login name and password for LAUSD. This was then used to send out SPAM from your account.

Here is what an actual LAUSD email notification message looks like:

From: System Administrator
Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2011 11:00 PM
To: <Your Name>
Subject: Your mailbox is over its size limit
Importance: High

Your mailbox has exceeded one or more size limits set by your administrator.
Your mailbox size is 84451 KB.

Mailbox size limits: You will receive a warning when your mailbox reaches 80000 KB. You may not be able to send or receive new mail until you reduce your mailbox size.

To make more space available, delete any items that you are no longer using or move them to your personal folder file (.pst).

Items in all of your mailbox folders including the Deleted Items and Sent Items folders count against your size limit.

You must empty the Deleted Items folder after deleting items or the space will not be freed. See client Help for more information.