Phishing (Scams) and Spam emails
Related information:
ITS has seen an uptick in phishing attempts in the last few weeks. Scammers typically use emotion and urgency to get you to click and respond.
- Be suspicious of emails that ask you for your cell phone number or if you are available.
- Be suspicious of messages about internships and job offers that pay an extraordinary amount per week.
- Too good-to-be-true items for sale is another tactic scammers use. (i.e., free pianos).
- Please pay attention to the email sender's details. You may see a familiar name, but look at the email sender's details, which probably reveal a scammer's address.
- Be suspicious of attachments, unexpected DocuSign, and fake OneDrive shares, links, and forms. These are very common ways to collect your Pomona login credentials.
- Obvious typos are another sign of a scammer's email.
- Pay attention to the bottom of your email. If you see a yellow banner like this, It was sent from outside the College.
[EXTERNAL EMAIL] Exercise caution before clicking on links or opening attachments.
- Sometimes, Pomona accounts do get compromised by scammers, and they then have access to the address book. Please be extra cautious when you receive these emails and let us know.
- Use the Report Message tool in Outlook to report Phishing and Spam.
- Before clicking, verify with the ITS team. We'd be happy to help.
- Most importantly, ITS will never ask you for passwords or for you to verify your account.
Phishing: A digital form of social engineering that uses authentic-looking (but bogus) e-mails to request information from users or direct them to a fake Web site that requests information.
Spam: Electronic junk mail or the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages.
NOTE:
If you accidentally share any of your account information, please change your password immediately (click here for instructions) and contact ITS at ServiceDesk@pomona.edu or 909-621-8061.
Scams to Watch For
There are some things that frequently occur in email that should lead you to suspect that an email is a phishing email or spam. If you receive an email that you are not expecting from a source you don't know, you should question it. If you receive an email from a source you DO know making an unusual request, verify it with the sender either by phone or a separate email. Do not use the original email to reply. Do not click on links and do not open ANY attachments.
- Alarmist or dire warnings of account closures
- Promises of money from complete strangers
- If it sounds too good to be true.
- Misspellings or bad grammar
- URLs that have no connection to sender
- Sender return addresses that have no relation to subject
There are a lot of common scams that are titled or worded with the following:
- Are you around today?
- Are you available?
- Internship Offer
- Bank of America (Bank of America) Important Notice
- Your Account Has Been Blocked
- (WARNING) Microsoft Account Suspension
- We were unable to process your request
- We Have Temporarily disabled Your Account!!!!!!
- Alert from our security system