Jackson State University Warns about Phishing Email Campaign

Wdam.com reported on 13th March, 2015 stating that an innocent looking phishing email recently hit inboxes of employees of Mississippi-based Jackson State University (JSU).

Wdam.com reported on 13th March, 2015 quoting Randel Anderson, Computer Scientist of JSU, as saying "Phishing is employed to find identities of people and they are trying to collect details from you."

Anderson got the email which seemed to have come from a worker known as Denise of the HR Department but the email was found to be in spam folder highlighting that Google had singled it out as spam.

A closer look of the sender's email address shows that it in fact came from an unknown person who has been found at Wisconsin. The email asks recipients to click an attachment to confirm their online employment application.

Deborah Dent, Vice President of JSU Information Technology, says that opening the attached file would apparently spread a virus. Wdam.com reported on 13th March, 2015 stating that at least one employee of the campus did open it.

Dent observes that the file looked like a genuine file.

Dent says that JSU is penetrated with phishing emails on a daily basis but most of them are filtered before they strike inboxes of employees but this one sneaked in.

Please remember that no authentic institution (like Jackson State University above), bank or any other organization will ever ask for this information through email. It may not be possible to find out easily the authenticity of an email or website but there are many ways to help in finding out the same.

The officials highlight the following phishing tips to minimize the chances of being victimized which include: Never click on links in emails and open any attachments (as has been asked in the above case). If attachment is opened, it can carry malicious software which compromises your computer as an attachment may seem to be a kind of document type like PDF but it is actually a virus in disguise.

Any email asking your classified and sensitive information should be seriously cleaned and never trusted. Even if the email carries official logos or even links to a genuine website (like Jackson State University in this case), it could be a fraudulent one. Hence, never disclose your sensitive information.

» SPAMfighter News - 3/26/2015