Protect Yourself

Guard Against Phishing and Scamming Emails

The campus is experiencing a significant increase in targeted phishing attempts. Cybercriminals use phishing emails in an to attempt to manipulate CSULB employees for personal and financial gain. Whether it’s for gift cards, usernames and passwords, or data, social engineering is at the heart of all phishing attempts. 

Five Email Safety Tips Everyone Should Know

  1. Don't Open Unexpected or Mysterious Attachments: Viruses are often sent through email attachments.
  2. Avoid clicking on unexpected or mysterious links in the body of an email message: Some links may take you to sites that you don't intend on visiting. Unless you are confident about the legitimacy of the email and recipient, it is safer to copy and paste the link in a separate browser, since it is not directly connected to your personal email account.
  3. Use Spam Filters: Often, email programs already have safeguards in place to prevent unsolicited email or spam from reaching your inbox. Be sure to allow your email program to work for you by checking your Email options to ensure that spam filtering is turned on. When you do receive unwanted email, you can also mark those emails as “junk” or “spam” to stop receiving these unwanted emails.
  4. Beware of Phishing: Phishing emails are attempts by thieves to lure you into providing personal information for their profit. Learn more about Phishing and view ongoing reports of phishing threats reported by campus employees.
  5. Don't Send Sensitive Data in Email: When you send a sensitive information in an email, you don't have control over how the information is shared thereafter.