Scam Email Sent to SRCS Student Email Accounts

Dear Families, Safety is a top priority for our SRCS online environments. We want to bring to your attention a scam email that may have been sent to your child’s SRCS email account yesterday.    Yesterday late afternoon, it was reported that a phishing email that was promoting a "part time job opportunity" with an attachment was sent from an employee email account to many student email accounts. We’ve learned this was a part of an issue throughout the county. Our IT Services department took several steps to address and contain the situation, including immediately suspending the account in question, identifying the email and removing it from students' email accounts. This morning, schools also followed up with students about this email and to contact IT if they engaged with the attachment.  SRCS has numerous safeguards and a process in place for all SRCS accounts when such emails enter our organization. Below please find some helpful information and reminders regarding fraudulent emails and what you and your child can do.  Phishing is the fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by disguising oneself as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Attackers often pose as district or school leaders or other staff, and ask the individual to click on an attachment that is corrupt. It can be challenging to know if an email is safe, but a little skepticism goes a long way in protecting yourself. When reviewing an email, ask yourself:   Do you recognize the sender’s email? Does the email seem questionable or unlike something you would normally get from this sender?  Question the purpose of the email: Is there a financial request? Is the sender asking you to provide a password or access to a system?  Are you being asked to click on a link or attachment?  If a message seems questionable: Do not reply to the message or click on the links or attachments. Report the message as spam/phishing on the message itself from your inbox. Forward the email to IT Services (DOsupport@srcs.org) so we can look into it.  Thank you for your support. Sincerely, SRCS IT Services it-services@srcs.org       San Rafael City Schools www.srcs.org  |  communications@srcs.org 310 Nova Albion Way, San Rafael, CA 94903

[Thursday, Oct 24 at 5:19 PM]
Dear Families,

We want to share some additional information as a follow up to our message about the scam email sent to SRCS email accounts.

We have learned that some students clicked on a form linked in the email and shared some personal information. Here are some steps we recommend to protect yourself:

- Please check with your child to see if they submitted a Google form from the "part time job opportunity" email and shared personal information, like a personal email.

- If they did share information, please monitor that personal email and DO NOT respond or reply or DO NOT follow any further direction. We believe that this is a type of scam that is seeking personal financial information and bank access through a number of follow up steps.

As we previously shared, we have removed the spam email from student accounts so it is no longer available, as well as completed a number of other steps to address and contain the situation.

In general, please follow the previous recommendations regarding when reviewing an email to determine if it is phishing.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

SRCS IT Services
it-services@srcs.org