Update/Add Emergency Contact Information

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Category: Alerts

Published on Thursday, December 08, 2022 11:00 AM

Written by Adrian Cepero

In order to ensure you receive all emergency notifications (school closings, delayed openings, etc.), please make sure you have added your contact information in our "School Messenger Contact Manager" using the link below.  If you need to update your information, you can do so using the link below as well.

Contact Manager

Cybersecurity Awareness Month is Here!

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Category: Alerts

Published on Monday, October 03, 2022 1:05 PM

Written by Adrian Cepero

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month! And to commemorate it, we are raising awareness and implementing additional security measures.  One initiative is Wizer Training, whom we've partnered with to provide security awareness training on how to protect yourself, our district, and your family from cyber attacks.

Wizer has an extensive library of video content, games and other resources to promote cybersecurity awareness.  To top it off, Wizer training videos can easily be shared with family and friends, so help spread the word!  

For additiional tips and resources on how to stay safe online, visit: https://staysafeonline.org/resources/online-safety-basics/ 

2022-2023 Technology Updates

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Category: Alerts

Published on Thursday, September 01, 2022 3:22 PM

Written by Adrian Cepero

With the official start of the 2022-2023 school year only days away, we wanted to provide you with some information regarding technology updates/changes for the new year:

• Submitting IT Support Requests
  This summer we transitioned from SchoolDude to IncidentIQ (hackensackschools.incidentiq.com) for all IT support requests.  SchoolDude will continue to be used for Maintenance and Facilities request until further notice. A brief video tutorial will be shared in the coming days.
  
  
• New Technicians
  We would like to announce the addition of several new technicians that will be joining our team over the next few weeks:  George Castillo, Kasey Sanchez and Veton Rugova.  We will officially welcome them as they are onboarded. They are replacing two previous technicians that left the district over the past year and Ms. Johnson who is now assigned to the High School in a different capacity.  We look forward to them joining the team and providing you with the best support possible. 
  
  
• Google Classroom/Genesis Sync
  We will be syncing Google Classroom with Genesis on the afternoon of Friday, September 2nd.  
  
  
• New Time and Attendance System
  The district will be implementing a new biometric time and attendance system in the next few weeks. A short tutorial on how to clock in and clock out as well as how to view and update hours will be shared.
  
  
• Cybersecurity Awareness and Training - Wizer Training
  We have partnered with Wizer training to provide Cybersecurity awareness and training to staff districtwide and students in grades 9-12. An annual required training will be assigned through the platform in September. The training is less than 30 minutes and covers various topics that will help protect you, your family and the District. Videos on the platform can also be shared with family and friends.
  
  
• Zoom Accounts
  Please note that the District has not renewed Zoom for all staff. Our platform for remote instruction/web conferences will be Meets moving forward.  A limited number of Zoom accounts were kept for administrators, webinars and select district staff. 
  
  
• Interactive Panel Refresh
  The District will be replacing approximately 256 interactive whiteboards over the course of this school year as Phase I of II of a refresh program.  However, due to ongoing chip shortages, exact timeframes cannot be shared at this time. 
  
  
• Printer replacements
  As part of our refresh cycle for technology equipment, we have identified 84 printers slated for replacement. If your printer is on this list, we kindly ask for your patience as our team is working through it as quickly as possible. However, it may take our team a few weeks to reach everyone so we apologize for any inconvenience.  
  
  
• ParentSquare
  We will be implementing a new communication platform over the next several months in an attempt to consolidate communications to families. More information on the platform, which will eventually replace SchoolMessenger and ClassDojo (and potentially others), will be forthcoming.

Avoid the "Phish!"

Details

Category: Alerts

Published on Friday, March 18, 2022 11:29 AM

Written by Adrian Cepero

Dear Staff,

In an effort to further enhance our district's cyber defenses, we want to highlight a common cyber-attack that everyone should be aware of – phishing.

"Phishing" is the most common type of cyber attack that affects organizations like ours. Phishing attacks can take many forms, but they all share a common goal – getting you to share sensitive information such as login credentials, credit card information, or bank account details by pretending to be an individual or organization you may know or trust.

Although we maintain controls to help protect our networks and computers from cyber threats, we rely on you to be our first line of defense.

We’ve outlined a few different types of phishing attacks to watch out for:

• Phishing: In this type of attack, hackers impersonate a real company to obtain your login credentials. You may receive an email asking you to verify your account details with a link that takes you to an imposter login screen that delivers your information directly to the attackers. These generally lack personal information since they are sent to a large number of people at once, have a sense of urgency and contain typos and grammatical errors.
• Spear Phishing: Spear phishing is a more sophisticated phishing attack that includes customized information that makes the attacker seem like a legitimate source. They may use your name and phone number and refer to Hackensack Public Schools in the email to trick you into thinking they have a connection to you, making you more likely to click a link or attachment that they provide.
• Whaling: Whaling is a popular ploy aimed at getting you to transfer money or send sensitive information to an attacker via email by impersonating a real district administrator. Using a fake domain that appears similar to ours, they look like normal emails from a high-level official of the district, typically the Superintendent, Business Administrator or Principal, and ask you for sensitive information (including usernames and passwords) or to transfer money/purchase gift cards.
• Shared Document Phishing: You may receive an email that appears to come from file-sharing sites like Dropbox or Google Drive alerting you that a document has been shared with you. The link provided in these emails will take you to a fake login page that mimics the real login page and will steal your account credentials.  

What You Can Do

To avoid these phishing schemes, please observe the following email best practices:

• Do not click on links or attachments from senders that you do not recognize. Be especially wary of .zip or other compressed or executable file types (these are removed automatically in our email system).
• Do not provide sensitive personal information (like usernames and passwords) over email.
• Watch for email senders that use suspicious or misleading domain names (some may even originate from free email accounts such as Gmail or Yahoo).
• Inspect URLs carefully to make sure they’re legitimate and not imposter sites.(The most important pieces of a domain name are the last 2 portions. For example, an attacker may create a domain name such as netflix.[some random domain].com to try to make a domain seem legitimate. The red flag is [some random domain].com. Any legitimate email will usually originate from the company's primary domain.  In this case, netflix.com.  Anything before the last two portions of the domain are meaningless and easy to spoof.)
• Do not try to open any shared document that you were not expecting to receive. Reach out to the sender via another method to confirm the authenticity of the shared document.
• If you can’t tell if an email is legitimate or not, please report it using our PhishER (fish hook icon) tool in Gmail or by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
• Be especially cautious when opening attachments or clicking links if you receive an email containing a warning banner indicating that it originated from an external source.

Thanks again for helping to keep our network, and our people, safe from these cyber threats.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Regards,

Department of Technology