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Scammers try to quickly gain your trust. They aim to pressure you into acting without thinking. If a message or call makes you suspicious, nervous, curious, or "to good to be true" feeling? STOP, break the contact, and consider the language it uses. Scams often feature one or more of these tell-tale signs.
- Urgency: Are you told you have a limited time to respond often asking you to act now or immediately.
- Authority: Claiming to be from someone official - often pretending to be important people or organisations to trick you into doing what they want.
- Current events: Are you expecting to a message like this? often exploiting events or specific times of year (like registration, grade deadlines, or tax reporting)
- Requests for Sensitive Information: Legitimate companies never ask for passwords, credit card numbers, or Social Security numbers via email.
- Poor Grammar/Spelling: Professional organizations typically have editorial staff therefore obvious spelling or grammatical can indicate a scam.
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If you have any doubts about a message, contact the organisation directly. Don’t use the numbers or address or links in the message – use the details from the official website(s).
Remember, SUNY Orange (or any other official professional company) will never ask you to supply personal information via email, or ask for your password in any format.
See the screenshot below for an example of a recent PHISHING SCAM attempt and the red flags it contains.
To report a Phishing scam from your @sunyorange email address: forward the email to
it-security@sunyorange.edu
For more help and information if you fell victim to a Phishing scam please see the link below from the FTC:
https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-recognize-and-avoid-phishing-scams