Email messages sent from an email account outside of the @blueridge.edu email domain will have [EXTERNAL] prepended to the beginning of the subject line. Emails from our student email domain, @webmail.blueridge.edu will not be labeled as external.
The purpose of the [EXTERNAL] flag is to help everyone better spot potentially malicious phishing emails that might, at first glance, appear to have been sent by someone at Blue Ridge. (See example images below)
If you see an email with a subject line that includes the [EXTERNAL] tag, you can be certain that the email was sent from an account that is outside of the Blue Ridge Community College email system.
This does NOT necessarily mean that an email with the [EXTERNAL] label is a phishing email or otherwise malicious. It simply means that email message originated outside of the Blue Ridge CC email system.
If you see an email that has the [EXTERNAL] label and appears to have been sent from an @blueridge.edu email address, consider that a warning flag that the email is potentially dangerous.
For example:
- an email from prospectivestudent@gmail.com will have the [EXTERNAL] flag on the subject line. However, that is A-OK since it's clear that email was sent by someone outside of BRCC.
- an email from hr@blueridge.edu that has the [EXTERNAL] flag is almost certainly malicious.
Below are two images of the same malicious phishing email. The second image demonstrates how the [EXTERNAL] flag will make it a little easier to spot potentially malicious emails.
Example of an email that APPEARS to come from hr@blueridge.edu:
Example of an email that APPEARS to come from hr@blueridge.edu
Below is an example of the same email with the [EXTERNAL] flag applied - making it easier to spot as a malicious phishing email
Same email as above with [EXTERNAL] flag that shows it likely did not come from a Blue Ridge Employee