Alert Issued to Students of University of Florida about New Phishing Scam

Florida US-based University of Florida, a well-known name among academic institutions, recently discovered one fresh phishing e-mail campaign so it's cautioning students for exercising care if they've to provide personal information, published wcjb.com dated January 9, 2014.

Pretending to be University of Florida's Computing Helpdesk, the scammer dispatches one malevolent e-mail directing that recipients should follow one given web-link for altering the details of the web-mail account they have with the institution.

The scam message comes in another variation whereby the exact contact information of the university's Computing Helpdesk is also included for further confusing the pupils.

The IT department of UF therefore, recently released a security warning related to the scam.

Tracy Gale, Communications Manager of UF Information Technology stated that no official belonging to UF's Helpdesk could dispatch bulk e-mails to campus pupils and that no one at UF would request to give one's GatorLink password. Alligator.org published this dated January 9, 2014.

Gale added that UFIT issued security warnings about phishing campaigns via social-networking websites immediately after IT security reported of them.

A freshman to international studies, Austin Landis stated that students could un-effortlessly become victimized with the scams given the frequency at which University of Florida issued reminders for resetting passwords. Alligator.org published this.

Landis, who was 18-yrs old, added that she knew her passwords were regarded as not strong enough, as UF was constantly helping in making them crack-free.

And as per Gale, it couldn't be determined in any way about the number of students who became impacted with the latest e-mail fraud.

She indicated that there was nearly no real security in a university environment therefore setting strong passwords was truly an immense help.

Meanwhile, universities getting hit with phishing scams aren't unknown. For, during the 1st-week of December 2013, an online scam struck Aruba, Caribbean-based Aureus University (AU), following which Internauts were urged for remaining vigilant about phony Aureus University spoofed e-mails that led onto a phishing site. Bearing a header "Aureus University Recruitment and Liaison Services," the e-mails, which millersmiles.co.uk detected, posed as messages from the Office of AU School of Medicine Admissions.

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