Phishing Scam Hit UWF Students’ Mailboxes Last Semester

Pensacola, Florida, USA-based UWF (University of West Florida), during the last semester, had students get mass electronic mails, which in reality were efforts towards executing a phishing e-mail scam, revealed officials at the university, according to thevoyager.net dated January 13, 2013.

Seemingly as sent from UWF, the said e-mails told students they required following one web-link for keying in personal Gmail password with the university in 72-hrs else face account deactivation.

The Information Technology Service (ITS) Help-Desk of UWF issued a warning to students, in just hours, about the scam, advising them for treating e-mails with suspicion if the messages asked for passwords since such e-mails normally enabled committing ID-theft.

The warning indicated that any genuine e-mail from UWF wouldn't ever request for students' MyUWF or Gmail passwords and that e-mails that UWF's ITS Help-Desk dispatched too wouldn't ask likewise.

Specifically, Director Sandra Thompson of UWF's ITS stated that students must remain suspicious of e-mails, which were dispatched from general alternatively indistinct sources similar as "UWF.EDU Team;" electronic messages which had grammatical mistakes; as well as those which prompted for viewing a web-link, thus reported thevoyager.net.

Further, telling more about phishing scams, the ITS Help-Desk officials posted that they were ever-increasing, while there wasn't any method for effectually stopping them from entering students' e-mail accounts. Indeed, the phishing e-mail scams were made to deceptively get potential victims' personal information like passwords and usernames; Social Security Numbers, birth-dates etc. Also, since such fraudulent e-mails circulated in huge volumes, it was practically infeasible for the ITS Help-Desk for issuing a warning on campus, whenever one fresh scam arose. As a result, every UWF student along with employee should of their own learn the way for recognizing as also dealing with phishing e-mails.

The officials further posted that incase any campus inmate got one phishing message (similar to the aforementioned kind), he/she should simply delete it, adding that for any assistance towards determining whether a website/e-mail was genuine, he/she could contact the ITS Help-Desk.

Meanwhile, in one likewise phishing scam hitting American universities, the Stanford University's numerous members were targeted with fraudulent e-mails as they emerged during December 2012.

Related article: Phishing Attacks, Growing in Sophistication

» SPAMfighter News - 1/24/2013