SJSU Students Receiving Phishing E-Mail Looking for Personal Information

Students of SJSU (San Jose State University) have recently received an e-mail from senders that claim to represent the university and directs users to provide personal information.

Calling the scam as "phishing", the University Help Desk says that it involves bulk of e-mails and fake Websites that deceive users into giving out their private details that scammers could use for malicious purposes. Further, as per a CMS Help Desk bulletin, the message says that SJSU is updating the university's e-mail center and database, and it plans to eliminate e-mail accounts not in use.

The e-mail also says that the recipient must reply with his/her username and password so that the account remains intact. However, the university has said that the e-mail is not from SJSU and warns that it is a scam.

Meanwhile, the Help Desk site has warned that online scammers could exploit the stolen information to harvest more details of end-users being scammed. And since a lot of Internet surfers use the same login password for different sites, the damage could be extensive, relating to all the sites and not just the one, which fraudsters gain access to.

Also, the scammers might change the text in the link to appear connecting to a legitimate Website, although it actually takes the user to a different site. According to the university officials, phishing e-mails are regularly coming to the SJSU students, staff and faculty.

However, the university has cautioned all students that they need to be skeptical about any e-mail asking for personal information. The University Network Services also said that they should suspect those e-mails asking for personal information and coming from institutions that already have that information. Also, students should avoid using the links embedded in such e-mails instead they should access the site directly.

And while phishing scams increasingly target universities, recently during the 1st week of September 2008, another phishing scam circulated the inboxes of Kent State University. It sent fraudulent e-mail to 253 students, staff and faculty claiming that the university required their account credentials to let their account going.

Related article: SEC Imposes Trading Ban on 35 Companies

» SPAMfighter News - 29-09-2008

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