Information Security Awareness: Email Flooding Attacks

In this day and age, there seems to be a new scam to steal your personal or financial information almost daily! Below is some general information about email flooding attacks, and tips to help keep your accounts secure.

Email Flooding Attacks

What are they?

Email flooding is when an attacker or scammer registers your email address with hundreds or thousands of mailing lists.

Why would someone be targeted for email flooding?

The most likely reason someone is a target of email flooding, is because the attacker or scammer is trying to hack the account or overwhelm the user’s inbox with messages so that they don't notice an important email about fraudulent activity. People who deal with financial data are more commonly targeted.

How can I prevent this from happening to me?

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to prevent email flooding attacks, since the attacker is not directly emailing you and messages are coming in from all kinds of different email addresses. One way you can help monitor your Inbox is to use resources such as your ‘safe senders’ list and setting up filters based on key words, email addresses, and subject/body email content.

Resources for Wright State Employees

• If you ever have any questions or suspicions that you’re being targeted by a scammer, the CaTS Help Desk is a great resource to help you analyze whether or not an email is legitimate.
• You can contact the CaTS Help Desk at 937-775-4827, visit them in-person in 025 Library Annex (basement of Dunbar Library), or email them at helpdesk@wright.edu. The Help Desk’s hours of operation can be found at https://www.wright.edu/information-technology/location-and-hours.