Cyber security is critical to schools and universities, both public and private. Educational institutions are especially vulnerable to cyber attacks largely due to the sheer number of devices and users on their networks as well as vast amounts of sensitive information stored on them.
Teachers and students/parents exchanging emails is on the rise and so are issues with spam emails. Education networks are most often breached using email, usually containing malware in an attachment.
Cyber security awareness training for students, faculty, and staff is highly recommended. Ensuring a strong human firewall is the best way to prevent an attack.
How To Tell Legitimate Senders From Spam
It can be difficult to suss out the spam these days. Cybercriminals get savvier all the time, but there are a few giveaways you can look for.
1. Inspect the header carefully.
A legitimate organization almost always sends emails from email addresses containing the company’s domain name after the “@” symbol, like [email protected]. You have to own the domain name or have an authorized person from the organization create one for you to get an email with the domain, so if it is there it is probably legitimate.
Read carefully, though! Often spammers will mimic legitimate domains with small, easy-to-miss differences, such as rawenii.com, or add extra words, like ravenii-online.com. If either of these things is true, do not open any attachments or respond to the email.
If you receive an email that claims to be from a legitimate organization but the sender’s domain is unknown or from a public email service like Google, Yahoo, or Hotmail, that’s spam. Another surefire tell is when the sender’s name doesn’t match the name in the email address.
If there are no red flags on the sender, check the Bcc field. If your email address is there instead of in front of “To:” or “Send To:” it is likely spam. Legitimate organizations do not send blind copies of requests to do things like verify your credentials or transactions.
2. Check embedded links.
First of all, DO NOT CLICK THEM. Now that we have established that…
Spammers often use embedded links that say one thing but really take you to something else. Something malicious. To see where it actually goes, hover over the link with your cursor. If the URL that pops up isn’t the same as the linked text, don’t click it. If a link uses a shortened URL like TinyURL or bit.ly, you can use the website: getlinkinfo.com to see the expanded URL.
3. Look at spelling, grammar, and language style.
Typos happen even to everyone, but a legitimate organization will seldom put out emails with a ton of spelling and grammatical errors. Language that is overly urgent, pushy, or sounds fishy is another red flag. Scammers often pressure you to act by mentioning problems with important accounts or strict deadlines for response.
What To Do If Your School Or University Is Compromised
When a network breach occurs, it is critical that you call RAVENii ASAP. Our Incident Response service includes a thorough technical investigation, containment techniques, and elimination of the threats and hackers responsible for the breach. We will identify how the attackers are accessing your environment and determine how to close the doors to their entry points.
Once the attack is contained, RAVENii will provide you with recommendations for remediation as well as offer you solutions on how to make sure the attackers don’t have another way in.
RAVENii Cyber Security Is Here When You Need Us
RAVENii will help you resolve your security incident quickly and efficiently so you can get back to the business of doing business.
The impacts of a cyber breach are debilitating and can cripple your business. Let RAVENii help you lock it down. The RAVENii response team can be up and running in a matter of minutes to hours to quickly pinpoint the source of an attack, lock down credentials and put an end to malicious activity.
For more information about cyber security services from RAVENii, click here or call (844) 317-0944 today.