Cybersecurity Blog

Not sure an MRU email is legit? Contact the sender. – 12/02/20

 

With phishing attacks on the rise and everyone being vigilant sometimes legitimate communications are flagged as suspicious. This week we had a student report their e-transfer refund notification. Last month it was Cybersecurity Awareness Month notifications and the month before that it was a survey. While I am absolutely delighted that people are erring on the side of caution, I thought I would share a little tip that might make it easier to determine if a communication is official or not.

Without exception, official communications include who to contact if you have questions. There may not be a name but there will always be a department or email.  Senders know that you may have questions and in true Mount Royal University fashion, we want to be able to help. If you are not sure if an email is legit, look for that contact information. Take note of it and then search the Mount Royal website or directory to find an email that either matches the one in the message or is for the department that sent the email.

Once you know you have legitimate contact information, create a new email asking for verification that the email is official. It only takes a couple of minutes and it will get you an answer faster than if the IT security team does the same thing.

Note that I am not telling you to use the links in the email to contact the sender. That is because some emails are sent using services and the URL for the links take you to that service before you are sent to the final destination rather than directly to the intended URL.  This makes it difficult to determine if the links are legit or not. To be on the safe side, just create a new email to contact the sender for verification.

I am hoping that my little tip, will empower some of you and make you feel more in control of your inbox. That said, we will always be happy to have you report those emails that you just aren’t sure of. Keep up the good work!

 

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