Category: Email

For approximately a week, lots of schools that use Microsoft as their email provider, have experienced delays with their emails being delivered. This has impacted schools that use different IT Support companies/different ISPs/different DNS providers meaning this is not limited to HFL/RM managed schools. We are unsure what has specifically changed at Microsoft’s end and to the best of my knowledge there has been no communication from Microsoft on any changes they have made.

It looks likes Microsoft no longer support MX Records that have all the digits at the end of it – an example being: 1215491040.mail.outlook.com.

We believe that Microsoft MX Records now need to be in this format:  schoolname-herts-sch-uk.mail.protection.outlook.com

Today, RM made a bulk DNS change impacting 24 schools and we received positive feedback from these schools, that their emails were once again being sent/received promptly. With this in mind, over the next couple of days, RM will bulk update the MX Records for all HFL Broadband schools that have the unsupported format, over to the correct format.

If anyone has any queries about this, please get in touch with me or the HFL Service Desk.

Thanks, Kev (kevin.crawley@hfleducation.org)

This isn’t Broadband related, but as our Service Desk are receiving lot of queries on this, I thought that it might be helpful to send a communication out. There is a network wide ongoing Microsoft issue where schools and other organisations are experiencing difficulties receiving emails.

Microsoft are actively investigating this issue.

Whilst email is not part of HICS, some of you may find this post useful. Today we have received multiple reports regarding phishing emails being sent to schools in Hertfordshire. The email displays a blue box and asks for recipients to click on it, so they can display the complete message. If a user clicks the button it takes them to a page that is pre populated with the user’s email address, asking for a password. Under no circumstances should users enter their passwords on any screen that looks suspicious. We have restricted access to the web address that the current mail points to, however it is of course possible that this will change, so we recommend users remain vigilant.