On October 14, 2026, the Division of IT updated the spam filtering settings on the University of Maryland’s TERPmail system to reduce the likelihood of a phishing message sent from another TERPmail account reaching other TERPmail inboxes. We will continue to adjust spam filtering settings to prevent malicious mail from reaching TERPmail inboxes.
Why did we make this change?
Over the past few months, DIT staff have seen a marked increase in phishing messages sent to TERPmail accounts. These messages have resulted in hundreds of accounts or computers being compromised. We have also seen an increase in traditional spam of varied types, including those where students or alumni promote a business or send out their resumes in bulk in a manner that violates our Acceptable Use Policy and those where attackers compromise accounts to send phishing messages, often with links to software designed to give the attacker complete control of your computing device.
What TERPmail users need to do:
Check your Spam folder periodically: While the new filters are highly accurate, valid emails may occasionally land in your Spam folder. If you find a legitimate email there, mark it as "Not Spam" to train the filter. For mail you want to receive from known or expected senders, add contacts and create filters by indicating that you never want a certain sender to be sent to spam.
Please exercise great caution when reviewing messages in your Spam folder since there is a very strong chance that these messages are not legitimate and may be phishing attempts, especially if they ask you to share your password or download a program to view a document or invitation.
Review the current scams and phishing emails support article: This is where DIT lists many scams and phishing messages that we see targeting students.
Never share credentials: Remember that only you should know your passphrase and that IT and school administration will never ask for your passphrase or multi-factor authentication code via email or text message.
Report suspicious emails: If an email looks suspicious, even if it doesn't have a warning banner, please use the "Report Phishing" button in the Gmail user interface or Gmail app or forward it to spam@umd.edu.