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She writes: "what appeared to be an official Harvard email ID". No further description is given. This could be something as simple as "someone@harvard-faculty.
by quesera 6y ago
She writes: "what appeared to be an official Harvard email ID". No further description is given.
This could be something as simple as "someone@harvard-faculty.org".
For the recipient, this is effectively indistinguishable from a legit address. Not just because people are unsophisticated, but because many orgs really do use this sort of ancillary domain for conducting real business.
I've seen Fortune 50 corps, hospitals, and banks make this mistake.
Even if Harvard does not, has not, and will not ever make this mistake, an outsider would not be surprised to see it.
- psychometry 6y agoNo, anyone at Harvard uses a @*.harvard.edu address.
- quesera 6y agoYes, of course. But the senders were not at Harvard, so it's very likely that they did not do so. And they would not need to do so, for their purpose.
- notahacker 6y agoSure, but you wouldn't expect the average person who doesn't have a deep interest in tech and lives in a country where the .edu suffix isn't even a thing to know this. I doubt even most hackers here validate the ownership of the URLs every time a recruiter reaches out with a plausible-sounding personally-targeted opportunity (as opposed to a 'dear customer please sign in here' mass-mailing)