Over the past few weeks we have experienced a significant increase in the number of phishing email messages that impersonate a diocesan staff member, especially Bishop Doyle. Phishing attacks are on the rise and are getting more sophisticated. You might receive an email message that appears to be from someone within EDOT requesting help/information, but they may not be legitimate. Recently email messages with the email address feigeress367@gmail.com were received impersonating Bishop Doyle. Other email messages might display an “epicenter.org” domain/email address as the sender but if you hit “Reply” you will see a different email address.
If you receive a suspicious email asking for unusual information, bank account information, credit or gift cards, or other out of the ordinary requests, please do not reply, do not open attachments, and do not click on any links. Please confirm that the email is legitimate. To confirm, you may want to call or contact the EDOT employee, via email, by using the employee’s official epicenter.org email address (FirstInitialLastName@epicenter.org).
Unfortunately, anyone can create a Gmail, Yahoo, or any other email address with whatever name they choose. Also, anyone fromanywhere can specify any email address as their From address as long as they have a mail server that allows them to do so. The From address may be completely false (using somebody’s email address) or even non-existent.
Thanks for your diligence in this matter.
