On Wednesday 5 May 2021, UBC will implement an External Email Security Warning Tag on Student and Alumni email accounts. The tag will assist to identify phishing by indicating if an email originated from outside of UBC.
UBC blocks nearly 60,000 phishing emails each and every day. While we have many activities to protect our data, we want to help Students and Alumni to more easily identify phishing attempts in their UBC email accounts.
From Wednesday 5 May 2021, UBC will be introducing an External Email Security Warning Tag on all UBC Student and Alumni email accounts. This security enhancement will add a warning tag (like the one shown below) to the top of emails that originate from outside the University:
The use of a security tag such as this is fairly common practice across all industries, including higher education, as they help people to confirm if an email is real. For example, spoofed emails from the UBC President, a Dean, a Professor, or another official UBC communication channel would be noticeable if they had an External Email Security Warning Tag.
The warning tag is not an indicator that the email is phishing or fraudulent. It is a reminder to verify the authenticity of the email before clicking on links, opening any attachments, or responding to the message.
If you have any concerns about a message or link, don’t open the message or click the link. Instead forward it as an email attachment to security@ubc.ca.
You can find out more about the External Email Security Warning Tag here:
https://privacymatters.ubc.ca/email-tag
