You receive an email from your school's head of IT. There is a concern for a potential hack to the school's servers. IT knows some accounts have been compromised, with their login and passwords overwritten by the hackers. They need to reset the accounts that the hackers have changed the passwords on. However, they don't have access to the passwords directly, and the change records were corrupted by the attack. They need students and staff to confirm their passwords by logging into a secure site. If the login fails, they'll know your account was compromised and reset your account immediately. a.) This could be a phishing attempt. If the situation is as described in the email, this is also serious, but the method suggested is the same methods used by social hackers. Look up your IT Departments phone number and call them about the email.
b.) This is a serious issue, and the email came from the head of IT. The site also shows that it's secure. The longer it takes to reset accounts, the longer the hackers will have access to your account. Follow the instructions in the email from the head of IT.