Re: Official and Certified Email

[Mike Porter <mike () UDEL EDU>]

On Wed, 24 Sep 2008, Justin St. Onge wrote:

> I think email is a lost cause.   RSS maybe?

I don't know.  I am heartened by the fact that no one has fallen for
the latest phish scam here.  I think people need to learn to read
and think.  If something comes in the US mail, you should look and
think before replying; the same goes for email.  People haven't been
brought up thinking that email can be trivially forged and they
don't think.

Mike

> Justin St. Onge
> Academic Server Administrator/Lab Coordinator
> SUNY College at Oneonta - Academic Computer Services
> stongejc () oneonta edu
>
> "Look, defenseless babies!"
> Fletch
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv
> [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Mclaughlin, Kevin
> (mclaugkl)
> Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 8:43 AM
> To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
> Subject: [SECURITY] Official and Certified Email
>
> Hi All:
>
> Has anyone conquered yet how to have (example) their president send out
> an email with a link in it and have folks comfortable that it is not a
> phishing scheme?   I now have community members ringing our phones off
> the hook when United Way, Fine Arts, etc. emails come to them with
> instructions to click the link.  I applaud the fact that as a profession
> our awareness campaigns are working but am now struggling with the
> concept of how to create an official email that everyone who receives it
> knows to trust. Certificates, IMO, are not the answer as most people
> don't even know what the little certificate icon means, let alone how to
> hover over it to see if a message is authentic or not.  Of course, that
> could just be a training issue that needs to start at a young age in
> order to get people used to looking for a "President's certificate" or a
> "Help Desk Certificate", etc.  I suspect though (just a SWAG here on my
> part) that we will need to figure out an easier solution.   Any ideas or
> thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
>
> -Kevin
>
> Kevin L. McLaughlin
> MS,CISM, CISSP, GLSC, PMP, ITIL Manager Certified
> Director, Information Security
> University of Cincinnati

-
Mike Porter
PGP Fingerprint: F4 AE E1 9F 67 F7 DA EA  2F D2 37 F3 99 ED D1 C2