Phishing Scams Victimizes WSU

According to Washington State University (WSU) Information Services, presently two different e-mail scams are spreading like wild fire on the inbox of employees and students, as reported in news.wsu.edu on May 14, 2012.

The aforementioned message is followed by a URL which if clicked leads to a phishing site.
The forwarded message also contained a URL, on clicking of which membership would be suspended automatically.

The other e-mail conveys information about the need for increasing the size of the mailbox. It informs the user that as the maximum quota of 50MB storage is reached; the subscriber might be restrained from receiving e-mails further. To continue the functioning of the same, a subscriber is required to visit the URL provided with the mail and copy/paste it into the browser login and thereby follow all the instructions for upgrading itself to more storage space.

However, the URL provided in the mail leads to a phishing site. IS officials also revealed the fact that both the fake e-mails queries about the personal details like username and password of the subscribers.

IS officials however, provided some specific tips to students and employees for avoiding and identifying such forged mails in future. Tips include: emails sounding urgency and emergency owing to the exciting language used in the mails. These types of e-mails also ask for passwords, usernames or the like information. Last but not the least, these e-mails are mostly unsolicited.

Thus, to mitigate the chances of being victimized by such phishing emails, officials have also highlighted some security tips. They include: do not respond to any suspicious e-mail by clicking on links or filling out forms with personal or financial information. Also, forward the fake email that is phishing for information to helpdesk@wsu.edu, Officials advice.

Some of the easy security tips provided by the officials include: to restrict oneself from responding such dubious mails or restrain oneself from clicking the links forwarded in these mails. Further, such fake mails could be directly forwarded at the official address helpdesk@wsu.edu, Officials

However, WSU is not the sole US University to be hard hit by these phishing e-mail scams in recent months. Eastern Illinois University's (Illinois, US) also fell prey to phishing e-mail scam during the second week of April 2012. Students and faculties were evidently victimized due to the scam, which instructed then to re-login into Panther mail account so that they are able to send and receive e-mails.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 5/23/2012