Dealing with Spam
Exercise caution when reading your e-mails and communicating with your contacts. There are less sophisticated spam e-mail messages that are almost always automatically flagged and filtered. But there are also more sophisticated and targeted e-mail messages that include personal information to land more credibility to the e-mail message.
What should I be careful about?
Be careful with all e-mails involving any of the following:
E-mail is asking to disclose privileged information (providing data, asking for private information, disclosing passwords, access to platforms etc.).
E-mail contains requests for financial information, urgent fund transfers etc.
E-mail asks to open suspicious links, download/open/install suspicious attachments and files.
Be careful if the e-mail is unexpected:
You are not expecting an e-mail from this organization (e.g. a company suddenly claiming to have an unpaid invoice).
The person who is sending you this information usually does not deal with the subject matter of the e-mail (e.g. a colleague not working with finances asking for an urgent money transfer). In such cases, if possible, verify the legitimacy of the e-mail with the sender before taking action.
Your contact previously has used a different e-mail address and this new e-mail address is not known before (e.g. receiving an e-mail from realitdep[at]gmail.com).
E-mail is out of the ordinary or asking for sudden changes in procedures not discussed previously.
Spam messages may commonly contain publicly available information, such as names, e-mails, positions of you and your colleagues, to appear as valid e-mail messages. The presence of such information does not mean the e-mail is authentic.
Some spam messages will wind up in your “Spam” folder. You may check the “Spam” folder if you suspect a legitimate message might be accidentally flagged as spam. But this happens very rarely and the overwhelming majority of messages in “Spam” folder are fraudulent and can be safely deleted.
How can I check who is the email sender?
When encountering any suspicious or unexpected e-mail messages, the first step should always be to verify sender. Make a habit to routinely do this for any vaguely suspicious or important messages.
Additionally, Gmail automatically highlights e-mails whose origins could not be verified. This means the message could possibly be from someone pretending to be the stated sender. Treat such e-mails with precaution and verify their authenticity. Optionally inform the sender that their e-mails appear with such warnings and they should ensure that their e-mail systems are secure.
What should I do when I receive spam?
If the e-mail message looks suspicious, do not reply to the message or click any links! If the e-mail message appears to be spam, immediately delete the message.
If you suspect that the message may be falsely flagged as spam and may be authentic, contact SSE Riga IT Department first.
If you have accidentally opened any links or files from a spam message, immediately contact SSE Riga IT Department.
What should I do if I accidentally opened a spam message / suspect my e-mail account is compromised?
Immediately delete the e-mail message and any downloaded attachments
Run a virus/malware scan on your computer, check that there are no additional plugins installed in your browser, check that there is no new software installed on your computer.
If in doubt or you suspect further suspicious activity, immediately contact SSE Riga IT Department
If you suspect your e-mail account is used to send out spam or otherwise third parties have gained access to your account, immediately update your account password.
If you have lost access to your e-mail account or otherwise have suspicions, contact SSE Riga IT Department immediately.
Note: To avoid your e-mail account being compromised and used maliciously, make sure to set up 2-Step Verification (already mandatory for most of our staff and faculty).
More Information
Google: Verify sender information
Google: E-mail authentication warning message and what to do