When you receive unsolicited email that is at all suspicious, don’t click on links, don’t load images, don’t reply! What do we mean by suspicious? What do we mean by don’t touch? Read on.

Phishing schemes try to get you to provide personal info by pretending to be from real businesses or organizations. Don't be fooled into clicking links in e-mails or responding to these messages.

In the past few weeks we’ve seen lots of attempts to lure Hampshire email account holders to give up their email addresses and other information. They’re getting more sophisticated, including references “hampshire.edu” in the text, or purporting to be from the “Hampshire Mail Team.” Here are some clues that the messages are not legitimate:

• The return address is not a straightforward name@hampshire.edu.
• They ask you to respond with your user name and password.
• They ask you to go to follow a link to a website and enter your user name and password.

Remember:

• NEVER click on a hyperlink from an unsolicited email. If you have reason to believe it is not legitimate DO NOT CLICK OR GO TO THE WEB ADDRESS; report it to the organization it looks like it’s from. If you believe it may be legitimate type it into the web browser yourself. This will make sure you know where you’re going.
• NEVER respond to unsolicited email. You may be tempted to tell off the phishers, but a reply of any kind is EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT. Any response will indicate that they have found a working email address, and they can hijack it to send out more phishing messages.
• NEVER load images in unsolicited mail. Loading the images may trigger a response to the sender that your email account is valid, and available to hijack.

If you have clicked on something in one of these messages or replied and provided any information that you are concerned about, change your account password immediately. Make sure you do this by typing the web address directly into your web browser.

To change your Hampshire account password, type “password.hampshire.edu” into your web browser, and click on “Change my HampNet Password.”

More information and resources

Hampshire pages:

http://www.hampshire.edu/computing/1188.htm

http://www.hampshire.edu/offices/4131.htm

Other Resources:

See the "All About Phishing" page in the "Did You Know? section of Webopedia for more information, including examples, of phishing. http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/2005/phishing.asp

Please contact the IT Helpdesk if you have any questions or concerns about account security.