“Dear Professor” emails hitting campus - please mark as spam

The emails come from many different fake email addresses and target entire academic departments at once.  Although they contain your name and some brief references to the academic discipline, these are very generic and not targetting any individuals.   If you have received one they simply pulled your name and department from the college web site.

It is helpful for OIT to know about these emails since we can block or report them to Google.   To do so forward the email to [email protected].  You can then choose “report spam” from the pull down menu on the right in gmail.  This helps Google identify the offending sender and block or remove their accounts.

As always be wary of unsolicited email or messages from people you do not know.  Although this particular message is not dangerous it is annoying and possibly unsettling.

Thanks for being cautious

Seth Rogers
Director of Client Services
Office for Information Technology