March 11, 2025
K-State is Making Email Changes to Keep Everyone Safe
This week, Deborah Chase, the Academic Information Technology Director for the College of Agriculture, is filling in for me. She has some very important announcements to make regarding email and changes that are needed to enhance our IT security.
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Kansas State University is making some important changes to how email accounts work. These changes will help protect both the university and the people who use K-State email accounts.
Starting March 13, K-State will close email accounts for people who are no longer connected to the university. This includes former students who left more than two years ago, former teachers who left more than eight months ago, and former staff who left more than a month ago.
The university will also stop letting people automatically send their K-State emails to other email accounts (like Gmail). This means everyone will need to check their K-State email directly through the university's website or email program.
"As K-State continues to modernize and harden the technology environment, we need to ensure that our user accounts, security controls, and associated cyber-security training advance as well,” explains Thomas Bunton, the Chief Information Officer and Associate Vice President. “As we harden our technical environment from cyber-threats and bad actors, our users become some of the weakest links within the environment due to highly complex and highly sophisticated attacks that prey upon our users."
What Do You Need to Do?
If you're a current K-State student, teacher, or staff member, you should:
- Keep using your K-State email account as usual.
- Start checking your email directly at webmail.ksu.edu instead of forwarding it.
- Remember that your K-State email is for university business only.
If you used to be at K-State and still have an email account:
- Check any online accounts (like banking or shopping) that use your K-State email.
- Change those accounts to use a different email address before March 13.
- Save any important emails or files you want to keep.
If you're a retired professor or staff member with emeritus status, your email will stay active. You'll just need to:
- Use two-step verification to keep your account secure.
- Complete yearly online safety training.
- Log in at least once every 60 days to keep your account active.
Thank you for helping K-State be more secure!
Kansas State University needs to close unused email accounts to keep everyone's information safe. This is one of many cybersecurity initiatives currently underway at K-State.
"Every account, and every user, is critical to ensuring the security of the K-State environment," Bunton said. "Proper security controls -- such as not re-using passwords, logging out of devices when not in use -- to being extremely cautious about not clicking links, opening attachments, or performing actions requested of them without first verifying, via trusted phone number or in person, are just some of the ways we all play in part in securing the K-State environment."
Again, the changes start on March 13. Don't wait until the last minute to make any needed updates to your accounts.