Following up on our previous blog post on Recognizing Fake Job Scams Information Technology Services (ITS) has worked hard to put another tool in the hands of our students to combat email fraud.

Meet the red fish

The red fish button is now available in the mailboxes of all students. Click the red fish (pictured above) to report a malicious email to the ITS Service Desk. Easy as that.

What do we mean by malicious emails? If you suspect that an email sent to your Seneca email address is trying to trick you into revealing your sensitive personal information, applying for a fake job, or revealing your password to an untrusted website, please report it by clicking the red fish button.

Where do I look?

You’ll find the button in Seneca email account, Microsoft Outlook software, and on your smartphone if you use the Microsoft Outlook app to check your Seneca email. Just two or three clicks or taps and you’re a little bit safer. For more information, please visit our Phishing web page.

What happens?

Clicking the red fish button makes us all safer. By reporting a malicious email you’ll bring it to the attention of ITS. Emails that are confirmed to be malicious will be removed from all recipients’ mailboxes, and other safeguards will be put into place to prevent similar incidents.

When you click the red fish button a copy of the email will be sent to the Service Desk and the email will be removed from your mailbox. If you’ve reported a safe email by accident, don’t sweat it — you’ll find it in your Deleted Items folder.

What about text messages and my personal email addresses?

The red fish button is only available in your Seneca email address. If you receive a malicious email on your personal email address or a suspicious text message to your phone number, please use the phishing or spam reporting tools offered by your service provider.

Although Seneca cannot provide technical support for personal property or services, you’ll find the advice on our Phishing page to be helpful in general.

Let’s fight phish together

In the five years that Seneca employees have been using the red fish they’ve reported over 37,000 suspicious emails, contributing enormously to the safety of Seneca. We’re so happy that we can now offer this service to our students. Together we can contribute to Seneca’s already robust email security solutions.

For more information on phishing and the red fish button, please visit the Phishing web page.