Preemptive phishing protection

Phishing is sneaky and difficult to recognise. In many cases, it is only your own mental context that makes the attack work and you comply with the attacker's request to send them sensitive data. This is especially true if you think you know the sender. This is why phishers try to create this mental context through the content of the message. However, this also means that no two phishing attempts are the same and a human judgement is required to decide whether an email is phishing or not.

In case of doubt, emails suspected of being phishing are moderated manually. E-mails that are sent to several people AND where the sending server is unknown AND is also very ‘aggressive’ or ‘impatient’ are suspicious. If the sender turns out to be trustworthy after all, they are permanently unblocked and the emails are forwarded immediately.

Since July 2024, this procedure has ensured that no more waves of phishing have passed through the Trier site. Instead, up to 10 waves per week are successfully fended off.

Moderation by hand requires a human being. Therefore, there may be delays in the delivery of e-mails at night or at weekends. We do our best! If you experience repeated delays, please name or send us the specific email concerned. We will then look for the reason why this e-mail was classified as phishing and train the system accordingly.