U. Arkansas students and faculty are being targeted by a phishing scam asking for personal information, including usernames, alternate emails and passwords. The scams are designed to proliferate spam coverage and can be used in identity theft, UA information technology services employee Erin Griffin said.
“Phishing” is a term that describes fraudulent email designed to steal a user’s identity. These imposter emails appear to come from reputable companies or institutions, but are actually from thieves masquerading as legitimate businesses, IT officials said.
The most recent email targeting the UA was described by IT officials as fraudulent, but convincing. IT officials attempt to send out alerts when scams specific to the UA such as this one arise, Griffin said.
IT services released an alert via the Arkansas Newswire today.
The problem of phishing scams is not a new one, Scott Fendley, of the IT security office said.
“IT Services staff has seen many hundreds of variations of a phishing scam in the past few years,” Fendley said. “The thing that stands out is that the scam artists have gotten considerably better by using correct English with less misspellings, using a valid email address as the supposed sender, and using correct department or university names instead of “Uark.edu Webmail User” as was common 6 months or more ago.”
UA email accounts are among the most prized targets for phishers, Fendley said.
“University-based accounts are highly prized as .edu domains, some of the most long-standing Internet connections,” he said.
With this longevity comes a level of trust and reputation. Therefore, email originating from our campus mail servers is not as scrutinized as email from non-educational organizations, and an attacker who gains access to one of our user accounts will likely reach more recipients than an attacker using another provider (like Hotmail or Gmail). This translates into more revenue potential for the spammer or scam artist.
IT officials warned students always to be suspicious of emails requesting personal information, and provided a few tips for spotting a fraud.
A few indicators of a phishing scam include:
– An urgent tone, prompting users to act quickly or risk account closure.
– Spelling and grammatical errors.
– Requests for financial and personal information, such as email addresses and passwords. Fraudulent alerts may also ask for PIN numbers and social security numbers, but legitimate companies, including IT services, will never ask for passwords or other personal information in an email.
– A fake Web address, such as Microsoft @billing.com. The link may have a valid address displayted, but my lead to an imitation site.
– Non-secure Web pages with seemingly real URL’s. Secure pages have a locked padlock display at the bottom of the browser, and contain the letter “s” after “http” in the address bar.
The most recent fraudulent email sent to the UA community was as follows:
Attn: Faculty/Staff,
>
> This message is from The University of Arkansas IT Services Help Desk
> to all Faculty and Staff using UA Mail accounts.
>
> We noticed that UA Mail accounts has been compromised by spammers.
> They have gained access to UA Mail accounts and have been using it for
> illegal internet activities.
>
> IT Services Help Desk is currently performing maintenance and
> upgrading it’s database. We intend upgrading our Email Security Server
> for better online services.
>
> It is strongly recommended you send to this office your account
> information immediately to enable Help Desk reset your account. You
> will be sent a new confirmation alphanumerical password.
>
> Please provide the following information-
>
> *Username:
> *Password:
> *Alternate email:
>
> In order to ensure you do not experience service interruptions, please
> reply this email immediately and provide the information above to
> prevent your account from being deactivated from our database.
>
> Thank you for using our online services.
>
> Webmail Adminstrator.
> Copyright (c) 2010- The University of Arkansas.