As a generation of people who have grown up using the Internet, it is usually easy to detect scams and other hazardous pop-ups online. Students have listened to horror stories from middle-aged luddites warning the dangers of giving too much personal information to the World Wide Web. So after years of trial and error, it is now obvious which web users can be trusted. Or is it?

Within the last couple of weeks, students, employees and faculty have been receiving scam emails at their University email. These emails used an official Chico State University logo, making a convincing argument of authenticity. This scam spooked many Chico State students due to the amount of important information that the University portal enquires from each student. If the seemingly trustworthy university account can be hacked into by scammers through email addresses, what other information can they get?

This is not the first time scam emails have been hacked through the university portal. Two years ago, a Chico State student lost $2000 due to a hack email. And just last year a student received a scam email that led to her exchanging all of her personal information with the hackers.

Students should resort to the ITSS offered by the Chico State campus when dealing with possible computer hacking situations.

Here are some tips web users should consider when coming across an eyebrow raising email:

Look but don’t click. Use the cursor to hover over the hyperlink and check to see how legitimate the website address is. If it looks questionable, disregard the email.

Be aware of urgent instructions. If the email solicits taking urgent steps, know that this is a common tactic used by online scammers.

Review the sender. Look at who signed the email at the bottom, if it does not give an ample amount of legitimate contact information, know that this is probably a scam.

When receiving a large quantity of emails each day, it may be difficult to tell when one is a scam, especially when it is coming from the university email, a seemingly dependable source. Be careful of all the emails you receive, even if it is hidden with the Chico State logo.