During late summer and early fall, the Newark Academy Mail Domain was infected by a tremendous amount of spam. Spam was able to infiltrate our top flight email server through one student.  Spammers, disguising themselves as Newark Academy accounts, emailed students asking for usernames and passwords.  Unfortunately, once one student responded to these spammers, all of that student’s contacts were sent a similar email.  Therefore, spam spread like wildfire throughout the community, and nearly 75 students replied.  Quickly, the NA email domain was blacklisted by all major email domains, including Google, Yahoo, and Hotmail.   Mr. Scott and the Technology Department  found themselves playing a “cat and mouse” game, trying to reset all affected accounts; however, when they shut down one successfully, it seemed that another student would respond to a phishing email.

The major concern in fixing the problem was the time it would take to get the Newark Academy email domain off of blacklists.  Mr. Scott voiced his concern for the Seniors, who could not send or receive emails to colleges.  Meanwhile, the Technology Department worked rigorously to put together a report on the new measures added to block spam.  After months of talking with representatives of companies and putting together reports, the Newark Academy domain is slowly getting off blacklists.  Students may still experience delays sending emails to other domains because their emails are being screened very closely.

The Technology Department combatted the spamming in three phases.

Phase 1 involved stopping students from responding to spam emails.  In order to stop students from spamming others accidently, Mr. Scott put together a powerful presentation in early fall.  He  highlighted the issue and the fact that if one student responded, the entire student body would be affected; he stated, “We are only as strong as our weakest link.”  At the end of his presentation he asked students who responded to the spam to leave the auditorium and go to the ILC.  He did not do this to embarrass the students, but rather to reset each individual email account.  After the presentation, students  stopped responding in general.  However, one student “accidentally” responded, and luckily for the NA community, the new measures blocked spam from spreading again.

Then came Phase 2.  The Technology Department now had to get NA off blacklists.  As stated before, the process is extremely involved. Eventually, the Department was able to push through on the matter.

The final step, Phase 3, involved installing an $8,000 filtering solution.  This solution scans outgoing and incoming emails for spam, allowing almost no spam to make its way  on to any NA email account.

As has been made evident, those annoying emails asking for your password and usernames did not just go away.  The Newark Academy Technology Department worked painstakingly to fix the problem. In a way, it was a cyber battle to stop the students from hurting themselves.  Each time one person responded, the entire community was affected.

Now that we have averted a very serious problem, the members of the Technology Department want to emphasize that they would never ask for your username and password.  They create your account; thus, they have the authority to access it.  So next time you get a email that seems suspicious, don’t respond to it. If you are confused, seek help within the Technology Department before giving away any of your information.

At a time when Internet security is vital, it was certainly alarming to see students giving away their personal email information. Let us hope that every student (and every faculty and staff member) has learned from this experience.