Be wary of a recent spike in phishing emails, purporting to be from St. Thomas support organizations, that ask users to confirm their accounts and password information.
On an almost daily basis, Information Resources and Technologies is seeing several phishing attempts at St. Thomas. Some of these directly ask the recipient to respond with an email and password, and others direct recipients to a website asking for username and password.
Phishing emails attempt to trick users into providing confidential information by posing as legitimate emails. IRT will never ask for personal information or passwords in an email. Responding to phishing emails allows phishers to log into accounts to access personal information, or use accounts to spam the community with more phishing attempts.
IRT uses anti-phishing filters to trap unwanted email, but the reality is that as we advance in our understanding of how phishers work, they, too, advance in their methods of circumventing security measures.
For up-to-date information about security alerts and examples of phishing emails, visit the IRT Alerts website or its Facebook page.