During this month of holidays, you can be sure that you’ll be receiving greeting cards from malicious entities.  The Swarthmore community has already been receiving emails, like the one below, containing links to retrieve a holiday greeting card that someone so thoughtfully sent (note the spelling errors):

Unfortunately, the sender is someone intent on breaking into your system. Clicking on the links above will download a program that subsequently infects your system allowing remote control and access to your (and the College’s) personal data.

As a general rule, NEVER click on attachments that you’re not expecting -or- URL links to off-campus web sites. If you receive any email with links that you feel like you “must” click, please go ahead and forward it over to ITS first. We can take a look at the email and let you know if it’s safe to click away.

Also, specific to Hallmark email greeting cards, they provide some tips on their site to help determine whether the received card is genuine.

Enjoy the holidays but be vigilant!!