Students, Faculty, and Staff  may be the recipient  inappropriate messages, SPAM, or SCAM messages through Electronic Mail. It is important to realize that electronic mail is easily falsified and may not have originated from the person specified in the message. If you believe you have received such messages please forward the message and all the headers to abuse@njit.edu.

Inappropriate Messages

A message with inappropriate content may be harassing, request information outside the scope of University business, contain innuendo, or sexual content, and appears to come from some know to you such as a classmate, instructor, or administrator. Should you receive a message with inappropriate content you should immediately forward the original message with all headers to abuse@njit.edu. Do not reply to or contact the sender directly. Often, the sender information has been falsified, of spoofed. Do not delete or alter the message in any way, store it in your mail folder until contacted by the Network Security Manager.

SCAM messages - Beware of  Email Fraud

University members have been receiving "Scam" E-mail messages.  Please be aware of how to identify E-mail "Scams" and what to do if one is received. While we are taking steps to reduce the number of such messages, it is not possible stop all "Scam" messages. These messages often provide misinformation, offer you something for nothing or at a low risk, or ask for financial assistance. Some are immediately identified by their subject, the following are subjects of "Scam" messages received here at NJIT:

We ask the university community to be on the look out for such E-mail "scams". Some important things to remember are:
 

• Never provide personal or financial information about yourself via E-mail
• Never provide any private information about NJIT or any of its members via E-mail
• Any unsolicited E-mail message should be suspicious, do not reply without investigating
• Never reply to unsolicited messages, this will serve to provide a correct E-mail address
• Never confront the sender of a Scam message yourself.
• If you receive a "Scam", or fraudulent E-mail message, please forward it to: abuse@njit.edu

The Federal Trade Commission has a web site noting the "Dirty Dozen" E-mail scams. Please visit: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/doznalrt.htm

SPAM Messages - Electronic Junk Mail

The best protection against Email SPAM is prevention. Be very aware of who you give your E-mail address to while online. Some web sites and free software request your Email address before providing access. The fine print often indicates that this Email information will be shared for marketing purposes and you will begin to receive SPAM. You may wish to created a free public Email account to give out on the Internet, this way SPAM does not interfere with your personal or business Email.

NJIT takes some steps for preventing major abuses of SPAM however, it is typically indistinguishable from legitimate Email. Most mailing list companies do provide a way to be removed from their mailing lists, but remember, you will only be removed from that one list. You may quickly to added to another. If you are getting a large amount of SPAM from a site and they do not stop even after requesting you can forward an original message with headers to abuse@njit.edu, and we will attempt to get the messages stopped on your behalf.

Extracting Email Header - Microsoft Outlook

Should you receive an unsolicited E-mail message, SPAM, or a SCAM message, to investigate fully we will need we will need the record of the message's trip through the Internet, commonly known as the E-mail message headers. Please follow these steps to send us the headers.
 

• Start Outlook and locate the message in your mailbox.
• Select and open it by double clicking.
• From the open SPAM Message window select View-Options.
  Note: If you have short menus enabled you may need to click the down chevrons to expand the menu.
• At the bottom of the Message Options window is a box labeled Internet Headers:. Highlight all the text in the box, it may scroll out of sight, then right mouse click on the highlighted text and select Copy.
• Click the Close button to close the Message Options window.
• In the SPAM Message window click the Forward button to forward the message.
• Address the new forwarded message to abuse@njit.edu
• Click in the forwarded message body window and paste the headers you copied previously by selecting Edit Paste.
• Click Send