Phishing E-Mails

You have been redirected to this site because you clicked on a link or visited a site that is a known phishing attempt.  Please see the following tips below for techniques on identifying phishing attempts:  

  • Examine links by hovering over them with your pointing device to make sure the underlying URL matches what you would expect. If there is ANY question don’t click on it. In most cases you can get to where you need to go by using the address bar in your web browser, bypassing the questionable email altogether.
  • Look for terms that are unique and locally identifiable within the message text itself (again don’t trust the “From:”) like proper names, signature blocks, and titles that you are familiar with. Technology Support Services and TSS are fairly unique but it is always best if you can identify multiple authenticity indicators.
  • Be suspicious of generic titles like, “Your IT department”, “Webmail”, “IT Director”, “College IT Team”, “Helpdesk”, or even “Shoreline Community College IT Department”.
  • It is very common for phishing scams to include a link to a login website that LOOKS REAL. The address bar is sometimes masked (particularly on portable devices) but in most cases it is clearly visible, and if you look at the URL it should be fairly evident that it is not where you want to be. Once you enter your login name and password however it typically redirects you to the real site as if you botched the initial login. Once this happens your account is typically used to spam or scam others in large volumes.
  • Luckily most of these scams are automated and single purposed, but if you use the same password for multiple accounts it would be trivial for one of these scammers to manually break into your other accounts causing significant damage, financial or otherwise.