Phishing Attempt

Over the past several days, FDU has received an influx of vastly similar phishing attempts. These messages claim to be from FDU employees despite coming from a Gmail account and being prepended with the [External] tag.  They begin with an innocuous introductory question like “Are you Free?” and then ask you to buy them gift cards when you reply. Although our domain has received some fairly convincing scams in the past, this surge has consisted of easy to detect phishing red flags. 

If you get a phishing email, please click ‘Report Message’ in Outlook.  This is the most effective way to make both USAN and Microsoft aware of a phishing attempt.  Email sent directly to members of USAN, while appreciated, is less effective than simply using the reporting tool.

Our organization is constantly adjusting email rules to stop as many attempts as possible while not restricting legitimate external emails from being delivered. Some phishing emails will always make it through the system and we are counting on the vigilance of an educated and aware community to act as our final line of defense. Please take an extra second to consider all of the common hallmarks of a phishing attempt that we have highlighted in our Tech Alerts over the years. 

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

See also