CHS Phishing Attack

A phishing attack is an attack where an email looks legitimate but is not is actually coming from someplace else. Usually they are trying to capture gullible people with viable email addresses. These unsuspecting individuals are then spammed dramatically. Other attempts of phishing will look like they are from a bank or company and ask the user to log it or "verify" their account. In these more malicious attacks, the sender is trying to get username and passwords of their victim or other account information. 

On Thursday, some CHS staffers received a message seemingly to come from Mr. Lyons. There are a number of red flags with this email: 

• the email address is a gmail.com account, rather than carmelunified.org. 
• The username from the email isn't jlyons, but rather principalmail179318. 
• The message of the email is remarkably vague. 
• The signature of the email isn't the same as all of the other emails from Mr. Lyons.

But in the hurry of responding to emails, many staffers will see the name alone and assume it's legit and respond, giving away their email address. This probably isn't the worse gaff, but it can be annoying and perhaps dangerous if they request more information and the user then provides it.