04/17/2026

E-Mail & Contact Security Reminders

Every so often we see an uptick in the number of scammers and spoofing emails, especially during events. You may have seen emails recently asking if you want to buy a list of attendees or contacts for NeSSA and/or our upcoming EXPO. These are scams.

Other types of fake emails include asking for money or gift cards, asking you to update your information through an outside link or download, amongst other methods of trying to collect data and financial information. These spammers spoof emails to look like they are coming from NeSSA or one of NeSSA's board members. Past emails have even used @northeastssa.org in their email address.

You will only receive emails from Courtney (cjkahler@nessa.org) or from our general mailbox (NeSSA@nessa.org) unless otherwise notified. Vendors who register to exhibit at the annual EXPO may receive e-communications from EXPO-related 3rd party companies, such as our Exhibits Decorator or electricity provider. These company names are provided to you in your initial confirmation email from Courtney.

We will only ask you to update your information during dues renewal or using your secured online login with our website.

The Federal Trade Commission has a very good guide on how to identify and deal with phishing attempts. You can view it here.

If you receive an email or text message and aren't sure if it is legitimate, please feel free to forward it to us, or send us a screenshot, to clarify. You can also call us at (617) 600-4481.

Here are a few tips on recognizing legitimate NeSSA emails:

• Unless it is a legislative or security emergency (such as this one), we generally send emails during business hours, never in the evening or during the night.
• We will always include our logo or some kind of header image. Unfortunately, the sophisticated spammers are starting to include those as well. Please use your best judgement.
• We will type our abbreviation as NeSSA.
• Emails generally come from cjkahler@NeSSA.org. We do not utilize the full northeastssa.org or any version of that. At this time there are no other staff members who have NeSSA.org email addresses.

Please note that our website is secure, and since moving to our new website we have fortunately had less of these emails occur. If in the future there is something more we can do to stop these scams, we will. Unfortunately, this is something every webpage and group is victim to in today's online and AI world.

Thank you for your understanding.