Ever wonder where we get the sample phishing attempts you can browse on this site? If you look at the top of the page, you’ll notice the email address catchoftheday@vassar.edu. This email address key to how we get the most recent phishing attempts on our site, and you can help!

Every phishing attempt you see on this website is a genuine email received from within the Vassar community (which is why receiving addresses are usually redacted). We get these emails by having people send them into us at catchoftheday@vassar.edu! So if you receive an email that you think is phishing, here are some steps you can take to help us spread the word to the rest of the community and educate people using the message:

1. Check if the email has been posted on the site already. Phishing messages are often sent to large batches of people. If the email is already on the site, that means someone else has already sent it in. This is also a good reason to continually check the site; you can find what sort of suspicious emails you should look out for in your own inbox without having to figure out on your own if it’s phishing!

2. If it’s not on the website, send it to catchoftheday@vassar.edu. If we don’t have a message on the website, that means we don’t know about it, and can’t warn others to avoid the email and show why it’s phishing! So if you don’t see the message on this site, go ahead and forward it to us! If you’re not sure how to do that, you can look up the email client you use (like Gmail, Yahoo, or Mac) and “forward email.” On Gmail, you can click on the three dots next to the reply arrow within the message and select “Forward” and then enter catchoftheday@vassar.edu.

3. Report the email as phishing or spam. Once you have forwarded the email, make sure to report it as phishing or spam. In Gmail you can do this by clicking on the three dots next to the reply arrow within the message and clicking on “Report spam” or “Report phishing.” Like above, you can also look up your email client and “report phishing” to find out how to do this.

4. Never interact with a phishing email! As always, never click on a link or perform any action that phishing emails ask you to do.

Thank you for helping us identify phishing attempts and make Vassar more aware of cyberthreats by sending in the phishing attempts you receive. This website couldn’t exist without your help!