Important Update Regarding Automatic Email Forwarding

From: CUIT Communications <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, Nov 27, 2024
Subject: Important Update Regarding Automatic Email Forwarding

Dear Columbia Community,

We hope this message finds you well. We would like to inform you about a critical issue related to automatic email forwarding. While this feature can be convenient, it has proven to be unreliable and poses potential risks.

Here’s why:

  • Inconsistencies: Automatic forwarding doesn’t always work as expected, resulting in missed communications.
  • Privacy Concerns: Forwarding emails containing sensitive information or personal data can compromise privacy. For security reasons, we recommend avoiding this practice.
  • Mail Sender Rules: Mail senders enforce rules (DMARC) that reject emails not sent from the sender's designated mail system. This prevents fraud but also causes failures when forwarded emails appear to come from columbia.edu instead of the original sender.

Due to these reasons, we will be disabling automatic forwarding from your [email protected] email address to non-columbia email domains on 2/4/2025. 

Action Required: To enhance reliability and security, please remove any existing automatic email forwarding rules and update third-party websites to use your preferred email address before 2/4/2025.

For questions or assistance, please submit a ticket to the CUIT Service Desk, email [email protected], or call 212-854-1919.

Jose A. Santiago 
AVP of Client Support Services
Columbia University Information Technology
 

Medha Bhalodkar
Chief Information Security Officer & AVP
Columbia University Information Technology