Our thoughts are with the many Texans enduring or recovering from floods and wind damage along the coast, around Houston, and in South and Central Texas. Many of us have family and friends in the affected areas.  It's natural to want to help, but please remember to be careful about requests for help via email or social media.

Scammers are already using Hurricane Harvey to trick people into clicking on links on Facebook, Twitter, and in phishing emails trying to redirect the money into their own pockets that we would give to help the flood victims.  Examples include:

• Facebook pages appearing to be dedicated to victim relief, but containing links to scam websites.
• Tweets with links appearing to be to charitable websites soliciting donations, but are instead links to scam sites or links that lead to a malware infection.
• Phishing emails asking for donations to Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund; but again, the donations go to scammers, instead.

Previous disasters have been exploited like this, and no doubt future ones will be, too.  Be careful when dealing with any social media or email solicitations for Hurricane Harvey disaster relief over the next few days and weeks.  Remember – think before you click!

If you do want to make a donation, we recommend you go directly to the website of a reputable charity of your choice, and make a donation there.

Written by CNS OIT staff
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