MADELINE RAINERI | News Editor
After a dramatic influx of phishing attempts directed at Lindenwood’s emailing system, the information technology department has implemented new security features to significantly reduce the number of spam emails found in students, faculty and staff inboxes.
Recently, Lindenwood’s IT department partnered with an IT security company called Trend Micro which provides cybersecurity software services.
“What you’ll notice now is that we’re flagging suspect spam messages, so if you have a suspect spam message, it will have a “spam” tag to make you aware that there is a potential spam message,” said T.J. Rains, the chief officer of information technology.
The messages that are flagged as spam are not necessarily spam, but the program is designed to alert students, staff and faculty of the potential for a spam message.
More messages are also being flagged more on the “back end” of Lindenwood’s servers. As of Jan. 23, the Trend Micro agreement has blocked over 28,000 spam messages from the Lindenwood emailing system.
In addition, Rains said that students will now be able to look at a “digest” email. According to an email from Lindenwood, the “Lindenwood E-mail Security” program will send users a daily message with “quarantined” e-mails. From there, users will be able to identify messages which came up as “false positives” when being flagged, and they can retrieve those emails and send them to their inboxes.
Rains said there is no concern with accidentally flagging an important email because all Lindenwood students, staff and faculty have been “white-listed” so their emails will appear in inboxes.
For any additional technology-related questions, the information help desk is located on the main floor in the Library and Academic Resources center, and it can be reached at 636-255-5100.
