Before You Click

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month! This is a time dedicated to empowering our campus community with the knowledge and tools to stay safe online. Throughout the month, we are highlighting essential security practices to help safeguard your personal data and myUMBC account. To kick things off, let's take a closer look at some of the most common online threats facing our community. 

The Phishing Yearbook

If phishing emails had a yearbook, the same scams would keep showing up in the senior class.

• Most Likely to Succeed: The Fake Job Offer - These scams promise easy money or a campus job, then ask for personal, banking, or login information, or even payment. 

• Most Likely to Return: The Account Verification Scam  - Comes back every year, asking you to verify your myUMBC account. 

• Class Clown: Red Flags - An unexpected sender, an unusual request, or a mismatched or suspicious link. 

• Most Dramatic: “ACT NOW - or Else!” - Creates urgency by threatening an immediate consequence. 

• Best Dressed: Pixel Perfect - Copies familiar logos and formatting to seem legitimate. 

A phishing message can even come from a real but compromised UMBC account. A familiar sender or polished design does not prove that a request is safe—especially when the message asks you to click a link, provide personal or financial information, make a payment, or share login information.

What do these scams have in common? 

They need you to act before you think. Take back that moment:

1. Pause. Urgency is your cue to slow down. Avoid clicking links, opening attachments, or responding immediately.

2. Verify. Contact the person or office through a channel you already trust. Use contact information you know or find on an official UMBC website rather than relying on the links, phone numbers, or reply address in the message.

3. Report. Think it might be phishing? Forward the message to security@umbc.edu or select “Report phishing” in Gmail. A quick report could help protect the next person who receives it.

Celebrate Cybersecurity Awareness Month with Us

Want to check whether your email address has appeared in a known data breach? Visit us in the Commons Breezeway on October 7 or October 28 from 12–1 p.m. You can also ask questions and pick up some cybersecurity swag.

Share This Information

Forward this email to a friend and encourage them to follow us at IT Security - DoIT Cybersecurity Assurance and Digital Trust on myumbc. Learn about recent cybersecurity attacks and articles about threats, scams, and attacks. 

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