Employee Impacts

Protecting Yourself From COVID-19 at Work and Home

March 22, 2020 Message from City Manager Doug Krieger

Employees:

I hope this message finds you well. As a follow-up to my email from Friday, city leadership has been evaluating Gov. Pritzker’s recent Stay-at-Home order to make the best decisions for our organization that balance the intent of this order with our mission to provide essential services to our community.

Our goal throughout this pandemic has been to maintain core city services while also safeguarding your health and well-being.  The Stay-at-Home order allows for essential businesses, of which we are one, to continue to operate. However, we all play a role in reducing the spread of this virus, and our directors agree that this order further changes how we do business in these times.

Some employees who were previously rotating in-person shifts in their buildings may now be asked to stay at home. Your direct supervisor will reach out to you, if they have not already, about whether you are to report to your building tomorrow. Employees already teleworking will continue to do so.

In addition, there will be some changes to how we operate our various City call centers. Finance will be operating theirs with limited staffing to begin the week; however, TED, the Clerk’s Office, Public Works, and Water will all be forwarding their call centers to voicemail and having staff check and respond remotely. City leadership will continue to explore how this order impacts our organization and will remain flexible in responding to evolving needs in the coming days.

As we continue to move through our temporary “new normal”, I again ask that you be mindful of cybersecurity threats, which are now increasing daily. Whether a phishing email with links to malicious sites or a request for your login credentials, scammers are taking full advantage of this unfortunate situation. Do not open spam emails or click on the links or attachments in those emails, and never reveal personal or financial information through email or to an untrusted website.

We all must do our part to fight cyber fraud. If you suspect your computer has been hacked, immediately shut it down and unplug it. Inform your supervisor, the IT Department or, if the incident takes place outside of normal work hours, City Dispatch. More cybersecurity tips are available at www.naperville.il.us/covid-employee-impacts, where we’ll also have information from this email available to see. Our FAQs on inside Naperville have also been updated and will continue to be as information changes.

Lastly, for your safety and the safety of the community you live in, I urge you to follow the Stay-at-Home order as much as possible. By staying home, you directly contribute to stopping the spread of this virus, and you very well may save a life.

We are doing all we can as an organization to minimize our employees’ exposure while also meeting our goal of serving our public during this time. Your efforts to date have been nothing short of heroic, and I have never been prouder to work with all of you. Please continue to take care of yourself and your families during these challenging times and be well.

Sincerely,
Doug

Protect Yourselves and the City: Cybersecurity in the Time of COVID

Unfortunately, cybersecurity attacks are on the rise as malicious individuals take advantage of the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. There has been an uptick in phishing campaigns and scams ranging from phishing emails with links to malicious websites advertising relevant information to requesting login credentials or donations.

Please follow these tips to protect yourselves, your families, and the City from cyberattacks:

• Exercise extreme caution when responding to individual pleas for financial assistance, such as those posted on social media, crowd funding websites, or in an email, even if it appears to originate from a trusted source.
• Be cautious of emails or websites that claim to provide information, pictures, and videos. Recently, there was a malicious website mimicking the legitimate COVID-19 live map of John Hopkins University. By clicking on the map, malware could infect your computer.
• Do not open unsolicited (spam) emails or click on the links or attachments in those emails.
• Never reveal personal or financial information in an email or to an untrusted website.
• Do not go to an untrusted or unfamiliar website for COVID-19 information. Please visit the City of Naperville website for COVID-19 trusted sources.
• Malicious websites often imitate a legitimate website, but the URL may use a variation in spelling or a different domain (e.g., .com vs .org). As an example, a recent email appears to come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommending some actions regarding the coronavirus. The email comes from a convincing looking domain, cdc-gov.org or cdcgov.org, whereas the CDC’s real domain is cdc.gov. The email urges recipients to open a web page that allegedly contains information about new cases of infection around their city. The website looks similar to Microsoft Outlook’s interface and requests user to enter a login and password.
• Attention to details, knowledge and instinct are your best defenses. Even if the email is from a trusted source, if something seems off or out of character, call the person to confirm – his/her account may have been compromised.