Tag: Phish Alert Button

Decluttering Your GatorMail Inbox

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GatorMail is the University of Florida’s free email and collaboration tool available to faculty, students, and staff. GatorMail is the most secure, convenient way to send and receive emails while you’re a part of the UF community.

Although UF’s Information Security Office employs advanced technologies that block hundreds of millions of malicious external emails each year, some spam, junk, and phishing emails still can make their way into your inbox. It can be more challenging to filter out phishing emails, especially spear phishing messages tailored specifically to the recipient. If you ever receive a suspected phishing email in your GatorMail, report it directly to UF’s Information Security Office by using the Phish Alert Button.

GatorMail’s junk settings can help keep your inbox virtually free of unsolicited messages. Did you know you can report junk, block specific senders and domains, and add filters to your GatorMail? Microsoft Outlook also offers the Clean Up Conversation tool to reduce the number of redundant messages in your inbox. To help prevent spam, it’s not recommended to use your UF email address for third-party accounts and listservs.

Visit https://www.mail.ufl.edu/managing-email/securing-gatormail/ to review UFIT’s email safety tips, including steps to report spam and GatorMail’s email security policies. And, if you need any assistance setting up a GatorMail inbox rule, just stop by the UFIT Help Desk at 132 Hub, across from the Starbucks.

Phishing vs. Spam

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Most of us receive phishing and spam email daily. Phishing emails are intentionally deceptive and designed to scam personal information by impersonating known organizations, people, or companies. Spam emails are unsolicited junk emails that contain commercial or sometimes misleading information and are sent frequently, even from legitimate company or organizational email addresses.

Unlike emails sent legitimately from companies or organizations, phishing attempts often begin with impersonal greetings, such as “Dear Client,” instead of addressing you by name. They also frequently contain grammar or spelling errors and urge you to click on a malware-infected link. Always hover your mouse over a link to see if it leads to the intended site or use the URL Decoder on mail.ufl.edu. Spam emails don’t have as many defining characteristics, but they are usually advertisements sent frequently to alert recipients of sales, or that urge you to do something, like completing a survey or visiting a website.

You should always report phishing emails received in your UF GatorMail email. Also, you may be able to cut down on the amount of spam you receive by unsubscribing from company and organizational marketing emails. Students, faculty, and staff can use the Phish Alert Button in their GatorMail to report phishing attempts. For spam emails, unsubscribe from all of the sender’s communications by looking for an “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the email (usually in small text) of each spam message received.

Learn more about email safety: https://security.ufl.edu/resources/email-safety/.