Dear HR Community,

During W-2 or tax season, efforts by identity thieves typically escalate, with the goal of obtaining personal identity information. Already this week, some of our peer institutions have started to receive these types of “phishing” attempts, which generally take the form of a seemingly internal email requesting W-2 or other confidential information.

Under no circumstances will Stanford leaders ask you to send them W-2 documents. If you receive an email asking for your W-2 or any other personal/private identity information or for information about other employees, please take the following action:

• Do not reply to the email
• Report the suspicious email by sending it to spam@stanford.edu

These efforts by identity thieves can take many forms and are increasingly sophisticated. Please be extremely careful and vigilant about releasing ANY confidential information.

Thank you for being proactive to safeguard your information and that of others.

Elizabeth Zacharias
Vice President for Human Resources
Stanford | University Human Resources