Recent phishing attempts

A recent phishing attempt was brought to the attention of LITS by several in the community. The message claimed to be coming from a college employee. The fact that the message did not come from allegheny.edu is what helped to identify the phishing attempt.

This particular attempt used messages like “Are you available?”, which are designed to engage the recipient in an exchange with the hacker. Best practice, if you are unsure whether the message is legitimate, is not to engage or reply.

This was a good reminder to the Allegheny community to be cautious when receiving unexpected emails.

If you get a message you think is phishing/spam you should:  

  1. Not click on links in the message
  2. Follow up by other means.  
  3. Report it as spam/phishing in Gmail

Please do not hesitate to contact the InfoDesk at infodesk@allegheny.edu or by phone at extension 3768 to report phishing attempts or obtain more information.

LITS always encourages safe account practices and would encourage you to visit the LITS website to change your password if you ever feel that your account credentials have been compromised.  In addition, two-factor authentication is an added layer of protection against this possibility.

Many thanks to those who called this recent attempt to our attention.