Pearson Pipeline

“YOUR MAIL BOX QUOTA HAS EXCEEDED THE SET LIMIT”

Does this email subject line look familiar? Last month many CLU account holders received such an e-message. It looked official, and the message advised recipients that their mailbox had “exceeded the storage limit” and that they would “not be able to send or receive new mail until” they had validated their mailbox. The message continued by providing a link to click in order to “re-validate” their mailbox. Fortunately, most CLUnet account holders did not fall for this phishing scam. Doing such could have downloaded malicious software, often referred to as malware.

Remember: CLU will never ask you to fill out a form in an email that requests account access information. CLU will ask you to reset your password every 180 days; the CLU password reset page is:
http://www.callutheran.edu/password

Here’s a few tips for recognizing a phishing attempt and to help keep your account secure:

1. Sender Address: Ensure that the sender address is coming from a Cal Lutheran email account.

2. Deceptive links: Note if a discrepancy between the shown link and the real destination URL exists. To see if the link text agrees with the link destination, hover your mouse over the link in the message. If you ever see a link that claims to be to one place but is really to another, beware.

3. Obvious grammatical or spelling errors (Could that explain why it’s spelled “phishing” instead of “fishing”?)

4. IP addresses in the URL: If you ever see an IP address in the shown or the real URL, be suspicious.

View the complete Tech Byte on phishing and an archive of previous issues at http://www.callutheran.edu/iss/training/tech_bytes/

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