The NTCC Computer Services team is urging the campus community to stay vigilant to avoid cyber-attacks. Recently, NTCC has seen a dramatic increase in the number of spam and spear phishing e-mails sent to college accounts. According to Sebastian Barron, Director of Computer Services and Enterprise Systems, hackers are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their efforts to lure people to provide sensitive information.
“Hackers have begun targeting school districts and higher ed institutions right at the beginning of Fall and Spring semesters to cause as much havoc as possible. We have seen a significant uptick in the amount of spam we are seeing. We have been in close communication with our network monitoring firm as we prepare to kick off the semester,” Barron said.
Here are some things you can do to help keep our technology assets safe:
- Pay close attention to emails. Intruders have begun creating highly targeted emails using logos (including our own), verbiage, and a number of other factors that are intended to gain your trust and make it difficult for users to decide if the email is spam or not. Pay close attention to the “EXTERNAL MESSAGE” warning. We have seen a higher amount of spam coming in that are impersonating our users.
- Remember that IT’s email address is ithelp@ntcc.edu. We would never send you an email with a form for you to reset your password or request such information. If you see this, it is 100 percent fake.
- Email the ticket system anytime you suspect that you have received a fake email, especially claiming to be us or another employee. This allows us to warn the campus community.
- Enable multifactor authentication wherever possible on your personal accounts (Facebook, Instagram, Google, etc.)
