Using This Website

I received a suspicious email message from a DESE email address. How can I tell whether it is genuine?

One thing to look for is an attachment. If you receive an email that looks like it is coming from the DESE but contains an attachment other than those listed below, the email is malicious and should be deleted without opening it.

PDF

DOC

XLS

PPT, PPS

MDB

TXT

Beyond that, it can be difficult to tell whether messages are genuine because the sender may look legitimate. Bogus emails can be generated by a mass-mailing worm spoofing our system.

A mass-mailing worm is a virus that searches an infected PC to learn all the email addresses stored on that PC either in an address book or in documents. The worm then "uses" one of the addresses as the sender and the rest of the addresses as the recipients to try and propagate itself. By spoofing the sender address the virus protects the identity of the true sender protecting itself from eradication.

Check with your anti-virus administrator for more information on viruses.

Back to Questions List