How to Recognize Phishing Attempts
Phishing/spam emails can appear to come from legitimate sources—including the Office of Financial Aid, Office of Student Employment, BankMobile, or even other students. These messages may ask you to click suspicious links or provide personal information, such as login credentials or banking details.
Trusted emails regarding financial aid and student employment will only ever come from finaid@shepherd.edu, or verified financial aid staff. We will never text you.
Forward suspicious emails to ITworkorder@shepherd.edu.
Refer to the IT Services’ Account Security Guidelines and Protect Your Tech webpages for more information.
What to Do
- Do not click suspicious links.
- Forward the suspicious email to ITworkorder@shepherd.edu.
- Delete the phishing message from your inbox, and delete it again from your deleted folder.
- Navigate directly to websites by typing the address in your browser – again, do not click emailed links.
Common Signs of Phishing
- Asks you to “verify your information”
- Empty email, contains only an attachment
- Spelling and grammar mistakes
- Unprofessional in appearance
- Suspicious email addresses
- Links that do not match legitimate web addresses
All official Shepherd University communications originate from @shepherd.edu email addresses. Shepherd will not use @rams.shepherd.edu addresses to communicate. Shepherd also does not use @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, or any other generic email addresses for official communications.
The “display name” of the sender is not an indicator of validity: always check the sender’s email address to identify the origin of the email.
BankMobile Security
- If you receive an email claiming to be from BankMobile, check that it originates from an email address with a BankMobile/BMTX domain.
- The sender’s email display name can be altered, so always confirm the email address is legitimate.
- BankMobile does not use @gmail.com or other generic email addresses for communication.
- Phishing emails relating to BankMobile may include a link that directs you to a spoofed BankMobile login page. These pages are designed to steal any login information you enter.
- It is always safest to navigate to your BankMobile account using the link on the in the Office of Finance section of the Shepherd website.
- Never provide your BankMobile account details to a third-party.
- If in doubt, always navigate to the BankMobile website itself before taking any account actions. Do not implicitly trust links sent to you via email.
If you are concerned about the security of your BankMobile account, contact their Resolution Team at 855-398-7260.
Examples of Phishing
Email was empty, containing only an attachment.
Email was sent from an @rams.shepherd.edu email address (a compromised student account).
Email is unprofessional in appearance.
Email asks to “verify your information.”
Email was sent from an @rams.shepherd.edu email address (a compromised student account).
