Phishing Scam Targets University of Iowa Students

In the end week of June 2009, Information Technology Services (ITS) of the University of Iowa (UI) reportedly faced many students complaining about a fake e-mail apparently sent from a "uiowa.edu" account.

The e-mail asked the recipient to follow a given link and confirm his account details as well as increase the quota of his account that had already surpassed. Figures of complaints, however, were not available.

Many students of UI have gone home as the summer vacation has started. Despite this, scammers are continuing with their attacks.

Generally, scams targeting university communities are more frequent in the spring and fall semesters and less during the summer times, said Robert Vinson, Senior Security Analyst at ITS, as reported by TheDailyIowan on July 1, 2009.

Vinson further said - although the ITS employees never fail to act when they receive complaints, including sending out an alert notice via the ITS website, this time they could just do so much to deal with the phishing scam. According to him, it is not possible to trace every phishing attack, which arrives with an efficacy of a high order, and it is difficult to figure out the source of each attack.

Iowa City police and UI agree that when it comes to trace online crime, it could be a hard task to chase scammers as they could be operating from a different country or state.

Meanwhile, the helpdesk at the university has advised students not to give out their private information through e-mail as organizations they interact with for official reasons already have their account details and therefore wouldn't ever request them for the same electronically. Further, students should not click on e-mail links they doubt could be related to phishing.

E-mail scammers often target the students of the University of Iowa. During May 2009, a prominent e-mail phishing scam targeted students offering them suggestive methods for increasing their income in the present time of economic recession. Reportedly, an estimated number of more than 21,000 students got the fake employment offer through e-mail in their school accounts.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 7/13/2009