Pepperdine Gmail Resiliency Test

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Pepperdine GMail Resiliency Test 

Pepperdine ISO will be testing GMail resiliency by removing our spam filters from the email flow starting Friday, May 13, 2022 about 6 PM through Sunday, May 13 about 1:30 PM. This test is meant to simulate a disaster where the campus networks become isolated, such as an earthquake.

What you need to know!

During the test:
  • Pepperdine Gmail will NOT be lost NOR significantly delayed.
  • You will receive potentially dangerous attachments, which we normally just block - DO NOT download attachments you weren't expecting!
  • You may get more spam or phishing - be cautious and take your time before clicking or replying.

Special Use Cases

If you are a delegated mailbox user when you send on behalf of the mailbox owner, the email will have a notation saying you sent it, for example:

From: Kim Cary sent by Jerry Harris
From: Financial Aid Office sent by J. Wave ('Student') 

If you are emailing the Help Desk, or using an IT web request form it will not create a Help Desk ticket. 

Call 310 506 HELP instead

Why is this test important? 

You don't know if you have resiliency, until it is tested. 
Accordingly, the Pepperdine Information Security Office is going to test that we can make the configuration changes needed to ensure that Pepperdine Gmail is usable in the event of a regional Internet outage. For example, if an earthquake makes Internet service to the Malibu data center unavailable, we would want to stop sending all our GMail through our additional security filters at the Malibu campus. In that scenario, if we don't stop directing Pepperdine Gmail through our additional security filter servers on the Malibu campus, no new email could be sent or received until those servers were reachable again. 

More Info

An email is going out from the University Marketing Mass Mail system with a notice about this test. It is not phishing--you can tell from the email address that ends in "pepperdine.edu".

If you have questions call the Information Security Office at the number in the University directory; if we get frequently asked questions, we'll post the answers below.

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