Chances are that you’ve received a phishing email in your inbox, but did you know at that time that it was fraudulent?
Phishing emails are an attempt to trick individuals into sharing personal and sensitive information, usually login credentials and sometimes financial information. The attempt typically involves a crafted email with hyperlinks to a website intentionally created to collect information from unsuspecting victims. An attacker may be sending out a generic phishing email to a large number of individuals in order to compromise unwary recipients, or he or she may be targeting you or your organization specifically known as “spear phishing” due to the focused nature of the attempt.
What's the difference between phishing and "spear phishing"? For spear phishing, the attacker will research details about you and your organization to find valid names and information about you to use such as project and organization names. The attacker may have even compromised the account of someone you do business with so they can craft emails from their account.
Here are tips on identifying phishing emails and what steps to take to protect yourself
Think Before You Click
Always be careful before clicking on any content in an email, including links and attachments.
Hover over the URL (or long-press on a mobile device) to double check its destination before clicking. If it doesn't match, that's a red flag.
In some cases, a single click is all that is required for your machine to be compromised.
Double check the sender's information: the domain name, recipient list, subject line, message, etc.
Keep an Eye on Shared Documents
Invitations to view shared documents are a common way to get you to click. Again, double check the sender. For example, on Office 365, legitimate sharing messages will come from either msonlineservicesteam@email.microsfotonline.com, or the email of the person sharing the document.
Know Your URLs
Never enter your Office 365 account credentials on anything other than the actual Office 365 login page. Look closely at the URL bar. Here is what it looks like:
If the purported sender is someone you know, contact him or her directly to verify if he or she sent the email. Contact this person through a method other than email. If his or her email account has been compromised, an imposter can simply reply in the affirmative to any email response you send.
Forward a copy of the email to your organization’s security team or IT help desk so they can help assess and respond to the situation.
Did You Fall For It?
If you believe you may have fallen victim and provided your account credentials or other sensitive information through a phishing site, please report it immediately. Your support or incident response team will walk you through the steps you should take, including changing your password and looking for suspicious activity on your account.
Arm Yourself with These Tools
Don’t reuse your Office 365 account (or any other important account) password on other sites. Multi-factor authentication on Office 365 accounts makes it harder for an attacker to access your account, but it doesn’t prevent them from using that password to access other accounts where the same password may be used. Having trouble keeping track of more than one password? You’re not alone. Use a password manager!
Attackers and hackers are getting more creative with their attack strategies. Stay prepared and always err on the side of caution.
How the modern librarian is guiding research in the online era
Teaching proper research methods is about so much more than enabling students to turn in the perfect paper. When done thoroughly, it imbues them with the ability to evaluate resources for credibility, avoid misleading misinformation and mount a cogent argument. Teaching students how to research is about empowering them to think critically, both in the classroom today and beyond.
“It all comes back to the purpose of school,” says Aron Early, research technology specialist at Sammamish High School in Bellevue, WA. “Not so much about content, but teaching kids how to learn. Like evaluating information and being a critical thinker.”
In many ways, the Internet has made research easier. In many others, however, it’s complicated the task of discerning verifiable, accurately sourced and cited material from the misinterpretations, half-truths and flat-out falsehoods that live online. A lengthy study by Stanford’s Graduate School of Education concluded in June 2016, found that even older students could stand to improve their skills in correctly identifying true stories online.
Meanwhile, the role of librarian continues to evolve in support of long-term learning. Research technology specialists are 21st century figures, standing at the nexus of technique, knowledge, community and social collaboration. For Aron, whose students in Washington have come to rely less on textbooks and more on the Internet, this means actively coaching them on ways to refine their information-gathering abilities, both in the classroom and the library.
Aron has also found help in Researcher, a tool within Microsoft Word that makes finding those credible sources simpler. With Researcher, anyone can search for and incorporate reliable sources and content, including properly formatted citations, all within a few clicks and without having to leave the document.
“It’s really bringing the library to the students and enabling them to be good researchers,” Aron says. “Being able to research sites, collect and curate your information all in one program is kind of amazing.”
Researcher displays source material found using Bing’s Knowledge Graph, which is tailored per a mix of algorithms, human oversight and measured criteria for what constitutes a “trusted” source. By vetting for sources that have an established history of accuracy and high level of online citations, Researcher can present a body of reference materials that includes national science and health centers, well-known encyclopedias, history databases and more.
In managing how sources are both gathered and displayed, Microsoft’s engineers consider Bing’s role in Researcher as a pro-active step, making good research quicker and less daunting.
“How do we get people to the good information and get them away from the bad information as quickly as possible?” asks Microsoft Researcher Engineer Douglas Taylor. Veracity, he says, and timeliness are the goals with Researcher. “We think the fact that people spend so much time learning, teaching and scrutinizing any website to see if it’s trustworthy is a problem worth solving.”
Aron adds that Researcher is not intended to replace the library for students, but rather to complement it. “As much as we are bringing the library to them digitally, we also want to make sure the library stays important in a student’s life,” he says. To that end, Bing and Researcher can point users to the nearest library for source material that isn’t yet digitized.
Ultimately, Aron views Researcher as a valuable teaching tool with the power to promote critical thinking among students and adult users alike. For more insights on research practices and other modern tools in education, you can follow Aron Early on Twitter.
Researcher, which is currently available to Office 365 subscribers, will continue to be updated with additional resource material over time. Students and teachers who haven’t already subscribed can download their free version of Office 365 with Word 2016* using a valid school email address. Researcher is also available as a mobile app for iOS and will make its way to other platforms and Office apps in the near future.
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Windows 10: How to achieve digital transformation through affordable innovation
LIVE WEBCAST:
June 7, 2016 10:00-10:45AM PST (GMT-8)
Digital transformation is the process of using today’s technology to modernize outdated processes and meet the most pressing needs of your business.
Thanks to recent advances in lower cost tablet technology and Microsoft’s suite of cloud and productivity services, complete digital transformation is more accessible now than ever before. A new class of affordable devices is revolutionizing the way businesses and their employees work and interact with customers.
These 4 Keyboard Shortcuts in PowerPoint Will Make Presentations a Breeze
Beginning to build a presentation PowerPoint can be quite a journey and an undertaking. To make it easier along the way, use these four shortcuts to move swiftly while you create your masterpiece.
Decrease or Increase Font Size
To quickly increase or decrease your font in PowerPoint, select the font you want to adjust and hit CTRL + Shift + < or >.
Make it Simple
When you are playing around with the text formatting, this keyboard is great to clear your slate. Press CTRL and the spacebar to remove all formatting.
Create a New Slide Within Your Presentation
Use CTRL + M to create a new slide. Don’t get confused with CTRL + N, this will open up a new PowerPoint presentation.
Tab Around All Objects on Your Slide
Objects can add up in PowerPoint. To quickly move between them instead of carefully selecting the one you want and having to click over and over again, use Shift+Tab to move through them.
Microsoft Power BI helps you stay up to date with the information that matters to you. With Power BI, dashboards help you keep a finger on the pulse of your business. Your dashboards display tiles that you can click to explore further with reports. Connect to multiple datasets to bring all of the relevant data together in one place.
If you have important data in Excel or CSV files, you can create a Power BI dashboard to stay informed anywhere and share insights with others. Do you have a subscription to a SaaS application like Salesforce? Get a head start by connecting to Salesforce to automatically create a dashboard from that data, or check out all the other SaaS apps you can connect to. If you are part of an organization, see if any organizational content packs have been published for you.
If you're in your workspace, select Get Data at the bottom of the left navigation pane.
Select Files.
Select Local File, browse to the file on your computer, and choose Open.
Power BI uploads the CSV file and adds it as a new dataset (the yellow asterisk indicates a new item). Since we did not already have a dashboard, Power BI also created a new dashboard for us. In the left navigation pane, the new dashboard is listed under the Dashboards heading, and the new dataset appears under the Datasets heading.
Step 2: Start exploring your dataset
Now that you have connected to data, explore to find insights. When you've found something you want to monitor, you can create a dashboard to keep up-to-date with changes.
Select the dataset image on the dashboard to explore the data you just connected to or, under the Datasets heading, right-click the dataset name and select Explore.
In the Fields list on the right side of the page, select fields to build a visualization. Select the checkbox beside Gross Sales and Date.
Power BI analyzes the data and creates a visual. If you selected Date first, you'll see a table. If you selected Gross Sales first, you'll see a chart. Switch to a different way of displaying your data. Try changing to a line chart by selecting the line chart option.
When you have a visualization you want on your dashboard, hover over the visualization and select the Pin icon. When you pin this visualization, it will be stored on your dashboard so you can track the latest value at a glance.
Because this is a new report, you need to save it before you can pin a visualization from it to the dashboard. Give your report a name (e.g., Sales Over Time) and select Save and Continue.
The new report appears in the navigation pane under the Reports heading.
Pin the tile to an existing dashboard or to a new dashboard.
Existing dashboard: select the name of the dashboard from the dropdown.
New dashboard: type the name of the new dashboard.
Select Pin.
A Success message (near the top right corner) lets you know the visualization was added, as a tile, to your dashboard.
Aron adds that Researcher is not intended to replace the library for students, but rather to complement it. “As much as we are bringing the library to them digitally, we also want to make sure the library stays important in a student’s life,” he says. To that end, Bing and Researcher can point users to the nearest library for source material that isn’t yet digitized.
to show this visualization on your dashboard too.
to return to your dashboard where you'll see the new tile.
