Tech Tip: How to Recognize a Phishing Attempt from a keene.edu Address

From the IT Group:

“Phishing” is email spam sent by someone pretending to be an organization or individual and it is designed to fool a user into providing his/her log on credentials. If you respond to this email, your account credentials will be compromised and you should immediately change your password.

How do you know if it is really the Keene State College IT Group sending you this email or not? It’s simple. It’s not! Neither the IT Group, nor any other legitimate institution would ever request this kind of information from you via email. There is never an exception to this rule.

You will always recognize a message from the IT Group because we use a standard email template when communicating with the campus. Critical campus wide messages from us:

• will always be addressed to the Student or Faculty/Staff GAL
• will identify ourselves at the beginning of the message as the KSC IT Group
• always tell you to, “Contact the IT Group HelpDesk at 358-2532, email helpdesk@keene.edu or stop by our office on the 2nd floor of Elliot Hall with questions concerning this or any other technology issue”
• provide location and contact information in the signature line.

You should never give out your personal information to any source via email. There is never an exception to this rule. If you aren’t sure, call us and ask before you compromise your information.

To learn more about phishing and what it looks like, take a few minutes to complete this online test: http://www.sonicwall.com/phishing/index.html.

If you would like more information regarding phishing and other helpful security information, please visit the IT Group HelpDesk website.