Phishing attacks via email have become more sophisticated in recent years and not all are blocked by Gmail. Many faculty, staff, and students diligently report examples of phishing emails to DoIT - this is always helpful information. In light of sophisticated and increased phishing attempts, DoIT Security began testing a new scanning solution to keep these emails from reaching your inbox. After a successful testing period, we began using this solution to filter email in student inboxes over the summer. This has had a noticeable reduction in phishing in student inboxes. 

We also know from past years that there is often a large increase in these kinds of attacks over holiday breaks and we ask everyone to be diligent. To that end, we have enabled the new scanning solution for faculty and staff so it can provide warnings to users about potential phishing messages.

Emails detected as phishing will be marked with a warning but will still be delivered to your inbox. Please use caution when reading these emails, and please let us know if any are not phishing.

What to Expect:You should expect a significant reduction in phishing that reaches you without a warning. We ask that you continue to forward any examples of spam or phishing to security@umbc.edu as we continue to monitor the performance of this solution. 

Questions: If you have any questions about this process, please submit a ticket to the DoIT Security group or reach out to me directly.