ISS Tech Bytes

October 8, 2015

CLUnet.edu Email End-of-Life

The ISS Tech Byte typically touts a new service or online resource, however this one is about a retiring service. Over the years, clunet.edu has slowly been phased out of advertising, business cards and stationary. However, it continues to be used by some for receiving email and outgoing email signatures. On December 31, 2015, Cal Lutheran will stop receiving and forwarding @clunet.edu email addresses. Those of you who have had a Cal Lutheran account for more than five years may have passed around your @clunet.edu email address; newer employees might look puzzled at this point.

 

The Clunet.edu domain was acquired and used extensively alongside callutheran.edu in the mid-nineties. Despite Cal Lutheran's branding campaigns standardizing marketing and stationary on the callutheran.edu domain, we continue to receive roughly 200,000 Spam and Phishing emails a day addressed to @clunet.edu addresses. On average 91% of Spam processed by Cal Lutheran email servers are addressed to @clunet.edu addresses. This volume of Spam email increases the chances of inadvertent compromise of our information systems via Phishing attempts, but also adds to the cost and diverts resources in providing services to the community.

 

Why is clunet.edu so popular with spammers? As with most universities, for years the Cal Lutheran online staff directory was readily accessible on the Internet, all long @clunet.edu addresses were harvested.  While these lists are now several years old, we continue to see patterns that suggest they are being sold and reused. Over the years we have taken steps to tighten access to the staff directory while continuing to provide access to you, our students and our prospective students.

 

So what should you do so you do not miss any legitimate emails come January 2016?

If you had not heard of clunet.edu prior to today or have never used or advertised @clunet.edu as your email address, there's nothing for you to do in this transition. If you think clunet.edu is a cool domain name, a DeLorean will be waiting to take you back to 1995.

 

<![For those of you who have (or suspect you might have) advertised an @clunet.edu email address in the past, we can offer some assistance. To help you identify emails sent to you at your @clunet.edu address, ISS has begun to prepend subject lines with [CLUNET.EDU], which should offer a visual cue in incoming emails. You might have received some already overnight.

 

For example, an email with an original subject line of:

 

Subject: Employee of the month award

 

Will now appear as:

 

Subject: [CLUNET.EDU] Employee of the month award

 

The subject line change should be a reminder of the change every time you receive an @clunet.edu email; emails sent to an @CalLutheran.edu address will not be modified. You may also wish to search your past emails for any that were sent to your @clunet.edu address, particularly to search for infrequent or one-off emails. To search your mailbox:

 

<![Outlook for Mac: click on the Search tab, next select All Mailboxes then in search drop down Any recipient contains, type @clunet.edu in the search 

    Outlook for Windows: type @clunet.edu in the search box toward the top of your mail listing and select current mailbox from the dropdown option on the right of the search box.

 

Please notify all senders to start sending to your @CalLutheran.edu email address. For email subscriptions and e-lists, you might need to re-subscribe or modify your email address. This would also be a good time to unsubscribe from some lists that you are no longer interested in.

 

If you have questions about this subject or any other technical matter, please call the Help Desk at 805-493-3698 or e-mail to helpdesk@CalLutheran.edu.

 

As a reminder, ISS staff will never ask you for your password.

 

Zareh Marselian

Interim Associate Provost for Information Systems and Services