It is an annoying part of modern life to have to deal with digital fraud. Via email, web pages, and texts, fraudulent messages are a ubiquitous part of daily routine. My workplace, a major university, has a longstanding program to inform and test employees on their fraud awareness. We must take a training course to recognize internet phishing, smishing, and other types of evil. And the standard web mail client has a built-in button to report suspicious messages to the university IT Department. On most occasions that I use it, it quickly turns out to be a fake, test message from the IT department itself. Just to keep us on our toes. But last week when I reported an obviously fake message, the IT guys soon reported back that it was legitimate fraud, and so I may have prevented a cyber attack on the university's network. Or at least saved myself some hassle by avoiding a computer virus. Then just this morning, I received a poorly written and suspicious text message to my phone which was supposedly from the USPS. Similar messages are common enough to have their own Snopes page. But I easily recognized the deception, reported it the US Postal System Inspection Service, and deleted it off my phone without replying or clicking any links it contained. Try again, internet crook scumbags!
