Good Afternoon,
I’m sure by now you are all familiar with and have experienced email phishing, but today I’m reaching out to discuss another very popular tactic called email spoofing.
Email spoofing is a type of forgery that makes the email look like it’s from a boss or colleague in need. They will often send a short, vague and sometimes desperate email in attempt to get you to reply to the message. Recently, school districts (including ours) have been hit hard with these attempts. Just in the last week we’ve seen five building administrator’s accounts spoofed.
You can generally tell that these are fake emails by looking at the email address the message is being sent from. For example, the account doe.john@iowacityschools.org would be someone from the district and should be safe to reply to. However, an email from johndoe12@gmail.com, principaljohndoe@yahoo.com, or even doe.john.iowacityschools.org@gmail.com are fake and potentially malicious. These are only examples and this is not an exhaustive list.
Here are few email best practices put together by the Help Desk.
- Do not send confidential or sensitive information via email.
- Do not send money or gift cards via email.
- Always verify the sender’s address.
- Keep an eye out for a yellow or red warning across the top of an email.
As always, if you have questions or suspect a spoofed email, contact the Help Desk.
Thanks,
Josh Reynolds
Client Services Manager