Phishing email awareness
As the Spring semester begins, it is important to remain vigilant when it comes to cybersecurity awareness. As a staff member of UW-Whitewater, you can be targeted by online criminals looking to steal your information through email correspondences.
Phishing scams are designed to get you to respond to an email and provide personal/financial information. Many phishing attempts will appear to be coming from someone within the organization in an attempt to get you to respond. Once they have your attention, they will start to ask you for personal information or to do a favor for them (such as purchasing gift cards).
You may see a few suspicious emails this semester. Take the time to read the email closely before you respond, confirm that you know the sender and that they are who they claim to be. If you have any doubt, you can contact the Help Desk at any time.
Here are a few characteristics you can look for that are commonly found in spam or phishing emails:
- Does the email contain the “EXTERNAL EMAIL” tag even though they are claiming to be from UW-Whitewater?
- Is the message coming from someone in a leadership role (Chancellor, Dean, manager, etc)?
- Generic greetings/generic signature.
- Offering money or a job, asking for your personal info or your help.
- The message is urgent or very important and you must act immediately.
- Check the user’s email address and make sure you recognize them.
- Look for grammatical errors, many times the criminal will rush to get the message out.
- Anything suspicious at all, do not respond. When in doubt, please contact the Help Desk!
If you think you have responded to a phishing email, contact the Help Desk immediately: helpdesk@uww.edu or 262-472-4357.
If you spot a potential phish, you can also attach it and send to: suspiciousemail@uww.edu. This will help us identify phishing attacks and remove them before anyone else can respond.
For additional information on cybersecurity awareness and IT security, please visit: https://www.uww.edu/icit/services/it-security#ITSecurityTrainingInitiatives