Email Scams and What to Watch For
A message from IT and Risk Management
Email scams targeting university students in Ontario have been making headlines recently and, while there are no reports of Trent students being targeted, the University’s IT and Risk Management departments are reminding our community to be mindful of potential email and text scams.
For general digital scam safety, Trent IT recommends the following:
- Think before you click! – If an email sounds threatening, urgent or too good to be true it may be a scam.
- Email sender addresses can easily be faked – Just because a message looks like it comes from someone legitimate doesn’t mean it does.
- Never provide personal information when clicking a link in an email message.
- Always verify messages that claim to be related to financial information including e-transfers with the sender.
- Hover over links in email messages with your mouse to see where they go.
- Text messages can be scams too – always be careful of links in text messages.
The safety of students and our University community is our highest priority. If you suspect that you are being targeted by a scam, please contact Campus Security (705-748-1328 and security@trentu.ca for Peterborough and (905) 435-5111 and oshawasecurity@trentu.ca for Durham), Peterborough Police (705-876-1122 and ARU@peterborough.ca), or Durham Region Police (905-579-1520 and webmaster@drps.ca). International students may access information and assistance through Trent International (705-748-1314 and international@trentu.ca).
Posted on January 22, 2020