Dear Colleagues,

As part of ITS’s ongoing efforts to improve cybersecurity across the district, the ability to automatically forward email to external addresses will be disabled starting October 1st, 2025.

This change helps ITS align with current cybersecurity best practices and better protect LBCC’s systems and data from external threats.

For example, as of October 1st, staff and faculty will no longer be able to automatically forward emails from accountname@lbcc.edu to an email like accountname@gmail.com.

Although email forwarding is convenient, this change is crucial because it poses significant security risks by allowing bad actors to:

• Steal sensitive information, such as student and financial data.
• Gain access to one-time passcodes and log in as legitimate personnel,
• Maintain persistent access even after the user changes their password,
• Conduct further attacks from within the district, and
• Reduce the ability to audit and trace activity, which in turn impacts the ability to respond effectively.

Rather than auto-forwarding email, you can configure common email clients to centralize all your accounts.

If you have difficulty adding your Outlook account to a different client, please feel free to:

• Email launchit@lbcc.edu with the specifics of your request, and an ITS service ticket will be created for you, or
• Call x4357 from on campus or (562) 938-HELP from off campus between the hours of 8:00 am to 6:30 pm Monday through Thursday and Friday 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.

If you have any questions regarding this or any other previous advisory, please do not hesitate to email the Office of Information Security.